Data access interface for clustered devices

ABSTRACT

A switching device is implemented in a network-attachable data transfer device to provide data storage access to other such devices. In some embodiments, network-attachable data transfer devices are arranged in a clustered configuration to provide various computational and storage services. When one or more devices of the cluster fails, various implementations associated with the switching device, via an external data interface, provide operational mitigation, optimized data recovery, and efficient reinstatement of normal operation of the cluster.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application incorporates by reference for all purposes the fulldisclosure of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filedconcurrently herewith, entitled “EFFICIENT DEVICE PROVISION” (AttorneyDocket No. 0097749-863US0), and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser.No. ______, filed concurrently herewith, entitled “ADAPTIVE DATARECOVERY FOR CLUSTERED DATA DEVICES” (Attorney Docket No.0097749-864US0).

BACKGROUND

The growth of data storage capacity and demands of data users has faroutpaced the increase of data transmission bandwidth capable oftransferring large amounts of data. For example, the advent of “bigdata”—the collection and analysis of large data sets obtained fromvarious sources—has further challenged the use of traditional datatransmission mechanisms. The discrepancy between the growth of datastorage needs and limited improvements in data transmission technologiesis so great that transmitting data between one storage facility andanother storage facility may be prohibitively costly (e.g., requiringcostly system upgrades) or lengthy (e.g., transmission may take monthsor years). Physically moving storage media may leave the data on legacyhardware, which may be disadvantageous (e.g., legacy hardware may nothave access to security updates).

Solutions that involve the transfer of data to portable storage devices(e.g., network-attachable data transfer devices) and shipping theportable storage device to another storage facility exist but face manychallenges. The capacity of data storage devices is not limitless. Whena single portable storage device has insufficient capacity, multipleportable storage devices may be used in concert, such as in a clusteredconfiguration. However, even in scenarios where a cluster uses one ormore redundancy codes to improve reliability, durability, availability,and/or access performance relating to data stored thereon, if a deviceof the cluster operates abnormally or is otherwise degraded, the clusteroperation of the cluster itself is degraded until such time as thecluster is reconfigured (e.g., by provisioning of a replacement for themalfunctioning device). As this reprovisioning process can be complex, acustomer may have challenges in performing and monitoring all the stepsnecessary in returning the cluster to a nominal operational mode.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various techniques will be described with reference to the drawings, inwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example environment in which a switching deviceand an external data interface are implemented to mitigate clusterdegradation due to a data transfer device malfunction;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example schematic diagram of a network-attachabledata transfer device, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 3 illustrates an example schematic diagram of an integration of aswitching device with a data transfer device, in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates an example environment in which a plurality of datatransfer devices may be implemented as a cluster to provide scalabledata services, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates an example environment in which an unhealthy datatransfer device negotiates authentication information with a healthydata transfer device attempting to connect through an external datainterface, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example environment in which a degraded clusteruses an abnormally operating data transfer device to provide data storedthereon in response to read requests, in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example environment in which a degraded clusterstores data on other devices than a partially available data transferdevice during a period of degraded operation, in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates an example environment in which a cluster manifest isimplemented by a cluster to administer and maintain members of thecluster, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 9 illustrates an example schematic diagram of a cluster manifest,in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates an example environment in which a degraded clusterissues, and a receiving computing resource service provider processes, arequest to provision a replacement data transfer device, in accordancewith some embodiments;

FIG. 11 illustrates an example environment in which a replacement deviceis integrated into a previously degraded cluster by at least copyingdata from an outgoing device, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 12 illustrates an example environment in which a clusterregenerates data originally associated with a malfunctioning datatransfer device as part of provisioning a functional replacement datatransfer device, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 13 illustrates an example environment in which a cluster loadbalances data stored on the cluster during a period of degradedoperation, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 14 illustrates an example process for initiating a clusterremediation routine upon detecting abnormal operation of a device of thecluster, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 15 illustrates an example process for utilizing a switching deviceto activate an external data interface of a data transfer device, suchas for cluster remediation purposes, in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 16 illustrates an example workflow for controlling access to anactivated external data interface of a data storage device, inaccordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 17 illustrates an example workflow for responding to retrievalrequests by a degraded cluster where a malfunctioning data transferdevice is configured for at least partial access via an external datainterface, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 18 illustrates an example workflow for responding to data writerequests by a degraded cluster having a malfunctioning data transferdevice, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 19 illustrates an example process for provisioning and configuringa replacement data transfer device for a degraded cluster, in accordancewith some embodiments;

FIG. 20 illustrates an example workflow for interaction between anunlocked cluster device and a locked cluster device, in accordance withsome embodiments;

FIG. 21 illustrates an example workflow for initializing a replacementcluster device, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 22 illustrates an example process for load balancing data storedduring degraded operation of a cluster using at least a replacementdevice integrated into the cluster, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 23 illustrates an example environment where a redundancy encodingtechnique is applied to data stored in durable storage, in accordancewith some embodiments; and

FIG. 24 illustrates an environment in which various embodiments can beimplemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various techniques and systems for improving functionality,recoverability, and restoration of operationally degradednetwork-attachable data transfer devices, interconnected clusters ofsuch devices, data processed therewith, and data stored thereon aredescribed. For example, a network-attachable data transfer device(interchangeably referred to herein as a “data transfer device,” or, incertain contexts, simply a “device”) implements one or more externaldata interfaces and switching devices that enable the data transferdevice to provide access, for authorized external entities connectingthrough the external data interface, to data storage (and data storedthereon) of the data transfer device. Accordingly, techniques involvingthe implementation of such data interfaces and switching devices, e.g.,in the context of providing data and data device access to an otherwisedegraded, inoperable, or partially inoperable data transfer device,provide considerable technical improvements to the operation of, e.g.,clusters of data transfer devices, the data transfer devices themselves,and downstream requisitioning and/or provisioning processes for suchdevices and clusters thereof, especially in scenarios where the datatransfer devices and/or clusters thereof are operating in a degraded orotherwise non-nominal mode.

In some embodiments, a switching device is implemented in a datatransfer device to control access to data storage of the data transferdevice. For example, the switching device may be connected to both aninternal data interface and an external data interface, where theinternal data interface is used by the processor and other components ofthe data transfer device to transact data with data storage (e.g., oneor more data storage devices, such as hard disk drives, solid statedrives, and the like) during ordinary operation of the data storagedevice. Accordingly, the switching device, which also connects to thedata storage, may generally behave transparently with respect to theinternal data interface and the data storage. However, the switchingdevice is capable of also providing alternative and/or simultaneousaccess to the data storage via either or both the external datainterface and the internal data interface, such as in response to anexternal command to do so, and/or detection of an event, such as aconnection attempt (e.g., via the external data interface), a failureevent (e.g., of the processor, network interface, and/or internal datainterface of the data transfer device), and the like.

The switching device may be controlled by, or at least accept andprocess commands from, one or both of the processor of the data transferdevice and/or an auxiliary device capable of also providing suchcommands, such as a display device (having its own processor, datainterfaces, etc.) integrated into the data transfer device. Either orboth of such devices may provide such commands in connection with manualinteraction (e.g., with the display device and/or as received by theprocessor), in connection with detection of an event, such as aconnection event or a failure event, and the like. Depending on thedesired access to the data storage, e.g., related to a diagnostic,recovery, or mitigation process, the switching device processes suchcommands to connect the data storage to either or both the external datainterface and/or the internal data interface. In some embodiments, theswitching device includes a processor and other components that allow itto make its own determination, in a similar fashion, of whichinterface(s) to connect to the data storage.

As may be contemplated, external access to data storage, such as via anexternal data interface, may be limited to authorized entities.Accordingly, the switching device or associated components of the datatransfer device may perform an authentication process to confirm theauthority of the entity attempting the connection. For example, asecurity module of the connecting entity (e.g., another data transferdevice) provides, to the receiving device, cryptographic material aspart of the connecting entity's connection process. The receiving device(e.g., the switching device) confirms the cryptographic material todetermine whether it corresponds to a known authorized entity (e.g.,confirmation of a shared secret) before providing further full orotherwise additional access, via the external data interface, to thedata storage. In some embodiments, the receiving device providing accessto its data storage confirms, e.g., using a cluster manifest associatedwith a cluster to which it belongs, whether the connecting devicecorresponds to, and can properly decrypt, an encrypted payload includedthereon, before providing such access.

In some embodiments, a cluster manifest includes information relating tothe operation of devices within a cluster including operation settings,configuration data, network information, executable code, cryptographicmaterial (e.g., cryptographic keys), and more. A cluster manifest mayinclude one or more encrypted payloads, one or more identifiers, and oneor more encrypted data entries. A bijective mapping may exist betweenthe identifiers and the encrypted data entries of a cluster manifest. Insome embodiments, the cluster manifest includes, for at least a subsetof the cluster devices, a corresponding encrypted payload, identifier,and encrypted data entry. An identifier may refer to information thatmay be used to identify a particular device of a cluster. Variousexamples of identifiers that may be used include a globally uniqueidentifier (GUID), universally unique identifier (UUID), media accesscontrol address, serial number, and the like. However, it should benoted that the use of an identifier may be a technical optimization thatimproves performance, and there exist embodiments contemplated in thescope of this disclosure where a cluster manifest does not includeidentifiers and/or mappings associated with identifiers. An encrypteddata entry may include data that is encrypted using various techniques.In some embodiments, an encrypted data entry includes two or moreencrypted partitions, each encrypted partition being encrypted using adifferent cryptographic key of a different security module. An encrypteddata entry, when decrypted, may encode cryptographic material such as acryptographic key. The cryptographic key encoded in an encrypted dataentry may be used to decrypt an associated encrypted payload.

As mentioned, the device associated with an encrypted data entry may beable to use the encrypted data entry to perform an authenticationprocess and/or obtain data, such as data stored on the data storage ofthe data transfer device to which it is attempting to connect. Thecluster manifest may include a list of encrypted payloads. Cryptographicmaterial obtained from an encrypted data entry may be used to decrypt,authenticate, or perform other cryptographic operations in conjunctionwith a corresponding encrypted payload. Each encrypted payload may beencrypted under a different cryptographic key (e.g., a cryptographic keyobtained from the corresponding encrypted data entry) and may bedecryptable by a particular device of the cluster.

Utilizing a cluster to perform data storage has various advantages overusing a single device to perform data storage—for example, usingmultiple devices in a cluster configuration may increase data throughputand capacity, may increase availability (e.g., if a single device of acluster becomes defective, operations may be offloaded to other devicesin the cluster), reliability (e.g., if a single device of the clusterbecomes defective, data in other devices may be unaffected by suchfailures), and perform load distribution functions. For example, data ispartitioned into shards across multiple devices of a cluster in such amanner that individual devices of a device can each be a source for asubset of a larger set of data. For example, data from a database may besharded across multiple cluster devices by a horizontal partitioning ofdata such that cluster devices are configured to each store rows of adatabase—such a configuration may be used to improve performance,reliability, and availability of data.

In scenarios in which a cluster of data transfer devices is degraded,such as if a given device or devices of the cluster enters a degraded,partially operational, or non-operational state, an authorized, healthydevice of the cluster may connect, as mentioned, to the data storage ofthe unhealthy device via their respective external data interfaces. Insome embodiments, the connection may be of a similar type (e.g., usingthe same protocol), as used by a given device to interconnect its owndata storage with its own processor (e.g., internal data interface).Accordingly, in some embodiments, a healthy data transfer device acts asa “host” for the data storage of the unhealthy device, wherein the datastorage of the unhealthy device appears as local data storage of thehealthy device. As the cluster may be aware of the specific data storagedevices participating in the cluster (e.g., via device IDs), as the datastorage connected in the fashion just mentioned involves data storagedevices already known to the cluster, the healthy data transfer deviceprovides access, via, the cluster, to the data storage of the unhealthydevice with little or no further configuration, as it is merely actingas a “proxy” or temporary replacement for the unhealthy data transferdevice.

In some embodiments, as such an arrangement can potentially result intwice the load on the healthy data transfer device when servicing, e.g.,read and write requests, the cluster metadata, such as the clustermanifest, may be updated to reflect the topology of the cluster.Accordingly, the cluster may treat the data storage of the unhealthydata transfer device in a different fashion as data storage of otherdata transfer devices within the cluster. For example, the data storagedevices of the unhealthy data transfer device may be marked asread-only, preferentially avoided in favor of other data storage storingor encoding the same data, or the like.

Additionally, a cluster operating in this manner may further adjust itsoperation with regard to both read and write requests and operationwhile the cluster is degraded. For example, as mentioned, data to bestored on devices of a cluster may be processed by one or moreredundancy codes to generate redundancy coded shards, which in turn aredistributed for storage on the various devices of the cluster. Datastored in this manner, as mentioned, is resistant to availability lossor actual loss, as fewer shards than the total number of shardsgenerated for a given set of data are needed to retrieve the entirety ofthe data.

As may be appreciated, the redundancy coding scheme used may beassociated with the number of active devices in a given cluster. Forexample, a cluster of five data transfer devices may implement aredundancy coding scheme generating five shards, one each per device,where three of the shards are sufficient to recover the entirety of thedata represented. Accordingly, during nominal cluster operation, a readrequest may involve retrieval of shards from three devices of thecluster, while a write request would involve writing a shard to each ofthe five devices.

However, if, for example, one of the devices enters a degraded orotherwise abnormal state of operation, the two device (or shard) marginof error is reduced to one (i.e., only one more device can fail beforeany additional device failures would result in loss of data oraccessibility thereto). To the extent that a degraded operating state ofa device occurs as a result of other aspects of the data transfer deviceso as to allow the data storage of that device to continue to be capableof providing the data, the aforementioned external datainterface-enabled connection of the data storage of a degraded device toa healthy data transfer device allows all previously stored shards to beavailable as normal (e.g., all five shards, in the provided example).Furthermore, if the data storage of the degraded data transfer device isreliable enough to store data, in some embodiments, data writes maycontinue to be committed to that data storage, e.g., if the cluster as awhole is short on storage space. In the aforementioned example, theredundancy coding scheme used to generate the shards may continue togenerate five shards, with three devices storing one shard each and thedevice “hosting” the data storage of the unhealthy or offline devicestoring two shards, one on its own data storage, and one on the“external” data storage.

However, if the data storage of the degraded data transfer device cannotbe verified as reliable for write operations, the cluster may implementa different redundancy coding scheme to account for the remainingdevices and/or the degraded device, so as to retain a desired level ofavailability, durability, etc. For example, data writes occurring duringdegraded operation may involve only four shards, two of which aresufficient to recover the data represented thereby, where each of thefour shards is stored on the data storage of the healthy devices of thecluster (and omitting the “hosted” data storage of the degraded device).As may be contemplated, other parameters, such as cluster load,individual data transfer device load, durability/availabilityrequirements (e.g., of the implementing authority), and the like, mayalso factor into the determination of an appropriate redundancy codingscheme during degraded cluster operation.

Additionally, if the data storage of the degraded data transfer deviceis determined to be unreliable for read operations, the cluster mayfurther retrieve requested data without participation of that datastorage. As sharded data allows for a quorum quantity of shards, fewerthan the total number of shards generated for a given data object, to beused to regenerate the data, data encoded under the assumption that alldevices in a cluster are available may be regenerated from some or allof the remaining data transfer devices in the case that one or more ofthe cluster devices are unavailable, degraded, etc.

While such techniques are useful for improving the usability andfunctionality of a cluster afflicted by a degradation event, additionaltechniques described herein include improvements to clusterfunctionality and resilience that result in a decrease in the amount oftime a cluster operates in a degraded state, once that degraded state isdetermined. For example, an entity of the cluster, such as a healthydata transfer device that successfully authenticates with and connectsto the data storage of an unhealthy data transfer device, submitsinformation regarding the unhealthy data transfer device to a computingresource service provider that provisioned it (along with the otherdevices in the cluster). In some embodiments, a display deviceassociated with the unhealthy data transfer device submits theinformation upon determining that the data transfer device is in anon-nominal operational mode. The information may include, for example,device identifiers, cryptographic information, cluster identifiers, andthe like.

The computing resource service provider uses the information toprovision a replacement data transfer device with a configuration thatcauses the device to perform a series of data recovery and clusterintegration steps when joining the cluster. The replacement device maybe configured with, for example, cryptographic material, stored in anentity of the computing resource service provider, specific to thedegraded device, and reallocated to the replacement device. Thecryptographic material may be used, upon an attempted joining of thereplacement device to the cluster, to decrypt an encrypted payloadspecific to the degraded device. In some embodiments, the encryptedpayload may be updated, either by the cluster or the computing resourceservice provider, to include executable instructions that cause thereplacement device to perform additional data recovery actions withregard to the data stored on the degraded device to be replaced.Furthermore, in some embodiments, the cluster manifest containing theencrypted payload may be updated to reflect an identifier of thereplacement device (in cases where the cluster manifest previouslyreflected an identifier of the replaced degraded device), as well as toinclude information regarding one or more components of the replacementdevice, such as data storage device identifiers, network interface mediaaccess control addresses, and the like.

Upon arrival and prior to joining the cluster, the replacement devicemay be in a locked state or an unlocked state. A locked device may haverestricted functionality such that one or more features, functions,operations, requests, etc., are not accessible to a customer. In someembodiments, a customer receives a device in a locked state and unlocksthe device. A locked device may include a locked cluster manifest (e.g.,an encrypted cluster manifest). In some embodiments, a customerinteracts with a human interface device (HID) to unlock the device forexample, a customer may unlock a device by: entering a password into analphanumeric keyboard or display device (e.g., touchscreen); entering apersonal identification number (PIN) or unlock code; performing abiometric verification using, for example, speech, fingerprint, and/oriris recognition. The information provided by the customer may be usedto unlock (e.g., decrypt) the locked cluster manifest and provide accessto an unlocked cluster manifest. The cluster manifest may be updated,e.g., by the computing resource service provider, in the mannerpreviously described, and after (or as a part of) joining the cluster,some or all of the updated cluster manifest may be distributed to otherdevices in the cluster to augment and/or replace the previous version ofthe cluster manifest.

In some embodiments, the cluster manifest may be provided by anexisting, unlocked device of the cluster, e.g., in response to detectingthat a device (such as a recently arrived replacement device) is in alocked state. The unlocked device may provide an unlocked clustermanifest to the locked device. The locked device may use the clustermanifest to perform an authentication. The locked device may receive thecluster manifest and parse the manifest to obtain an encrypted payloadand an encrypted data entry associated with the device. The systemparses the encrypted data entry that then is parsed into partitions andthe partitions decrypted using one or more security modules accessibleto the device. The decrypted partitions may then be used to assemble acryptographic key that is used to decrypt an encrypted payload of thecluster manifest. The encrypted payload may include cryptographicmaterial (e.g., a cryptographic payload key) that is usable to performone or more features, functions, operations, requests, etc. The devicemay store the cryptographic material (e.g., cryptographic payload key)in volatile memory, provide an indication that the device hastransitioned to an unlocked state, establish one or more connectionswith cluster devices, and perform data recovery actions. Cryptographicmaterial included in the payload, such as the cryptographic payload key,may be used at least in part as of one or more processes for storingdata in a secure manner (e.g., by storing the data in encrypted form).

In some embodiments, the aforementioned data recovery processes areperformed to restore the data stored on the degraded device to thereplacement device and, if applicable, redistribute data stored on thevarious devices of the cluster while it was operating in a degradedfashion. For example, the replacement data transfer device is connected,via its external data interface, to an external data interface of thedegraded device it replaces, according to techniques previouslymentioned. As part of the cluster joining process, the replacementdevice first attempts to verify the integrity and/or availability ofdata stored on the degraded transfer device, and, in some cases, checksthe health of the degraded transfer device to determine whether it isreliable enough to copy all data stored thereon. If the degraded datatransfer device is sufficiently capable, the replacement device copiesthe stored data (e.g., redundancy coded shards) from the data storage ofthe degraded device to its own data storage, terminates the externaldata interface connection with the degraded data transfer device, and inso doing, restores the cluster to normal operation.

If the data on the degraded data transfer device (or the device itself)is not sufficiently reliable or available, the data is regenerated fromshards stored on the other devices of the cluster, then reprocessed intoshards using the redundancy coding scheme previously used to generatethe original shards. The subset of the shards previously associated withthe degraded device are transferred to the replacement device forstorage.

Additionally, any data stored on the cluster while it was operating in adegraded operational mode may be subject to partial or completeredistribution, including, at least in part, to the replacement device.For example, in the five-device cluster example previously provided, ifdata was being stored on four of those devices during degradedoperation, at least some of the data represented by a set of four shards(e.g., some of the shards) may be relocated to the replacement device soas to more evenly distribute them, as any two shards of the set of fourare usable to regenerate the data, and any four out of the five devicesmay be used to store the shards. In some embodiments, the data isregenerated and re-encoded using a redundancy coding scheme thataccounts for the presence of the replacement device (e.g., all fivedevices being available), and the shards accordingly stored thereby.

In the preceding and following description, various techniques aredescribed. For purposes of explanation, specific configurations anddetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofpossible ways of implementing the techniques. However, it will also beapparent that the techniques described below may be practiced indifferent configurations without the specific details. Furthermore,well-known features may be omitted or simplified to avoid obscuring thetechniques being described.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example environment 100 in which switching devices114, 122 and external data interfaces 118, 120 are implemented innetwork-attachable data transfer devices to mitigate cluster degradationdue to a data transfer device malfunction. The respective external datainterfaces 118, 120 and switching devices 114, 122 enable respectivedata transfer device(s) in which they are implemented to provide access,for authorized external entities connecting through the external datainterface, to data storage 116, 124 (and data stored thereon) of a givendata transfer device, thereby allowing for implementation of variousprocesses and techniques to provide data and data device access to anotherwise degraded, inoperable, or partially inoperable data transferdevice. The techniques described provide considerable technicalimprovements to the operation of, e.g., clusters of data transferdevices, the data transfer devices themselves, and downstreamrequisitioning and/or provisioning processes for such devices andclusters thereof, especially in scenarios where the data transferdevices and/or clusters thereof are operating in a degraded or otherwisenon-nominal mode.

As described in greater detail in connection with FIG. 2 below, aswitching device 122 provides access, via either or both an externaldata interface 120 and/or an internal data interface 126, to datastorage 124 of a data transfer device. In the case of an data transferdevice operating normally, the switching device 114 provides access tothe data storage 116 via at least the internal data interface 112 tovarious components of the data transfer device, such as a processor 110,so that the device may perform operations involving the data storage 116in the course of its normal operation. In some embodiments, theswitching device 114, during normal operation of the data transferdevice, does not connect the external data interface 118 to the datastorage unless instructed by a different entity, e.g., the processor110, to do so. In some embodiments, the external data interface 118remains active, even during normal operation, simultaneously with theinternal data interface 112, and in some of such embodiments, theexternal data interface 118 is only active to the extent that theswitching device 114 is able to detect attempts from external entitiesto establish a connection with the data storage 116 (and not providesuch a connection unless the connection is authorized).

In some embodiments, an unhealthy data transfer device, e.g., one wheresome or all of the components 130 of the data transfer device are in annon-operational, partially operational, or abnormally operating state,provides access to its data storage 124 via a switching device 122 thathas been configured to provide such access via an external datainterface 120. For example, while the data storage 124 of an abnormallyoperating data transfer device may still be operational, the components130 of the data transfer device, such as the internal data interface 126and/or the processor 128, may not be able to communicate with the datastorage 124 and/or the switching device 122. Upon detecting such acondition and/or receiving information, such as a command from adifferent entity, that causes it to provide access to the data storage124 via the external data interface 120, the switching device connectsthe data storage 124 with the external data interface 120. In someembodiments, further substantive access to external entities, such asother cluster devices 104, is conditional upon authentication by theswitching device 122 of the unhealthy device (or other device, such as adisplay device, associated therewith) to access the data storage 124.

Upon authenticating and successfully establishing the connection viarespective external data interfaces 118, 120, the healthynetwork-attachable data transfer device accesses the data storage 124and provides access to that data storage 124, via a network interface108, to entities connecting to the healthy network-attachable datatransfer device via a network 106, such as other devices in the cluster104, entities of a computing resource service provider 102, clientdevices interacting with the cluster, and the like. In a sense, thehealthy data transfer device acts as a surrogate host for the unhealthydata transfer device, and addresses the data storage 124 as localstorage (e.g., on a similar level as its own data storage 116). In someembodiments, one or more processing capabilities of the unhealthy datatransfer device is bypassed and provided, directly or indirectly, by thetethered healthy data transfer device. For example, the components 130of the healthy data transfer device, such as the processor 128 and/orinternal data interface 126, which the unhealthy device ordinarily usesto access and provide access to the data storage 124, are bypassed fordata requests associated with the data storage 124, and instead providedby one or more capabilities of the healthy network attachable datatransfer device (e.g., the internal data interface 112, processor 110,network interface 108, etc).

As discussed in further detail below, the data storage 124 of theunhealthy data transfer device may be addressed by the cluster to whichthe data transfer devices belong as if the unhealthy data transferdevice was fully functional. In some embodiments, the data storage 124of the unhealthy data transfer device has one or more restrictionsplaced on its use and/or access, such as being addressed as read-only,preferentially disfavored for reads and/or writes, and the like.Furthermore, the healthy network-attachable data transfer device may, inconnection with successfully connecting with the data storage 124 of theunhealthy data transfer device, initiate one or more actions, such assubmitting provisioning and/or requisitioning requests for a replacementdata transfer device to the computing resource service provider 102.

A client device may connect via the network 106 to one or more servicesprovided by the computing resource service provider 102 as well as oneor more data transfer devices (such as in a cluster). In someembodiments, the computing resource service provider 102 may provide adistributed, virtualized and/or datacenter environment within which oneor more applications, processes, services, virtual machines, and/orother such computer system entities may be executed.

The command or commands to connect to the computing resource serviceprovider 102 and/or the various data transfer device(s) may originatefrom an outside computer system and/or server, such as the data transferdevice(s), or may originate from an entity, user, or process on a remotenetwork location, or may originate from an entity, user, or processwithin the computing resource service provider, or may originate from auser of the client device, or may originate as a result of an automaticprocess or may originate as a result of a combination of these and/orother such origin entities. In some embodiments, the command or commandsto initiate the connection to the computing resource service provider102 may be sent to the services implemented thereby, without theintervention of a user of the services. The command or commands toinitiate the connection to the services may originate from the sameorigin as the command or commands to connect to the computing resourceservice provider 102 or may originate from another computer systemand/or server, or may originate from a different entity, user, orprocess on the same or a different remote network location, or mayoriginate from a different entity, user, or process within the computingresource service provider, or may originate from a different user of theclient device, or may originate as a result of a combination of theseand/or other such same and/or different entities.

The client device and/or data transfer device(s) may request connectionto the computing resource service provider via one or more connectionsand, in some embodiments, via one or more networks and/or entitiesassociated therewith, such as servers connected to the network, eitherdirectly or indirectly. The device that requests access to the servicesmay, as previously discussed, include any device that is capable ofconnecting with a computer system via a network, including at leastservers, laptops, mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, othersmart devices such as smart watches, smart televisions, set-top boxes,video game consoles and other such network-enabled smart devices,distributed computer systems and components thereof, abstractedcomponents such as guest computer systems or virtual machines and/orother types of computing devices and/or components. The network 106,also as previously discussed, may include, for example, a local network,an internal network, a public network such as the Internet, or othernetworks such as those listed or described herein. The network may alsooperate in accordance with various protocols such as those listed ordescribed herein.

The computing resource service provider 102 may provide access to one ormore host machines as well as provide access to services such as virtualmachine (VM) instances, automatic scaling groups, or file-based databasestorage systems as may be operating thereon. The services may connect toor otherwise be associated with one or more storage services such asthose described herein. The storage services may be configured toprovide data storage for the services. In an embodiment, the computingresource service provider 102 may provide direct access to the one ormore storage services for use by users and/or customers of the computingresource service provider 102. The storage services may manage storageof data on one or more block storage devices and/or may manage storageof data on one or more archival storage devices such as, for example,magnetic tapes, hard disk drives, solid state drives, and the like.

The computing resource service provider 102 may provide a variety ofservices to connecting devices such as the data transfer device(s)and/or client device(s), which may in turn communicate with thecomputing resource service provider via an interface, which may be a webservice interface, application programming interface (API), userinterface, or any other type of interface. The services provided by thecomputing resource service provider may include, but may not be limitedto, a virtual computer system service, a block-level data storageservice, a cryptography service, an on-demand data storage service, anotification service, an authentication service, a policy managementservice, an archival storage service, a durable data storage service,and/or other such services. Each of the services provided by thecomputing resource service provider 102 may include one or more webservice interfaces that enable the customer device 702 to submitappropriately configured API calls to the various services through webservice requests. In addition, each of the services may include one ormore service interfaces that enable the services to access each other(e.g., to enable a virtual computer system of the virtual computersystem service to store data in or retrieve data from the on-demand datastorage service or the data storage service 102, and/or to access one ormore block-level data storage devices provided by the block-level datastorage service).

FIG. 2 illustrates an example schematic diagram 200 of anetwork-attachable data transfer device 202, in accordance with someembodiments. The diagram 200 illustrates various components and modulesthat may be included in a network-attachable data transfer device.However, data transfer device(s) including or omitting components arealso contemplated as within scope of the present disclosure, and, insome embodiments, components and/or modules may be replaced by othersuitable components and/or modules.

In some embodiments, as illustrated, the network-attachable datatransfer device 202 includes volatile memory, such as random accessmemory (RAM) 204; one or more security modules 206A and 206B; persistentdata storage 208; a processor 210; an electronic display device 212; ahuman interface device 214; a network interface 216, an external datainterface 220, an internal data interface 222, and a switching device224. The network-attachable data transfer device may be physicallyenclosed in a tamper-proof enclosure 218.

As mentioned, in some embodiments, the network-attachable data transferdevice 202 includes volatile memory such as RAM 204. Any suitable formof volatile memory may be used in place of and/or in addition to RAM,such as registers, caches, and other types of temporary storage. In someembodiments, the contents stored in volatile memory such as RAM 204 areerased as a result of the network-attachable data transfer device 202losing power (e.g., the device rebooting as a result of a loss of power,even temporary). Data stored in volatile memory may be maintained basedat least in part on the device maintaining power—the data may be lostwhen the device loses power even, in some cases, as a result oftemporary and/or intermittent power loss of the device. In an unlockednetwork-attachable data transfer device, the RAM may temporarily store acluster manifest 226 and cryptographic material such as a cryptographickey 228 obtained, e.g. from an encrypted payload of the cluster manifest226 using techniques described elsewhere herein. The cryptographic key228 may be used by the network-attachable data transfer device 202 toperform one or more features, functions, operations, requests, and thelike, according to techniques including those described in furtherdetail elsewhere herein.

In some embodiments, the network-attachable data transfer device 202 isconfigured with one or more security modules such as the securitymodules 206A and 206B. A security module may be any cryptoprocessorcapable of carrying out cryptographic operations, such as a trustedplatform module (TPM), physically unclonable function (PUF), hardwaresecurity module (HSM), and the like. In some embodiments, a securitymodule is a physical computing device that safeguards cryptographic keysby storing them within a tamper-resistant physical device. Securitymodules may be used for cryptographic key generation and storage, and toperform cryptographic operations for authorized clients of the securitymodule. In general, the cryptographic keys are not exportable from thesecurity module in an unprotected form. In some embodiments, a securitymodule is configured to perform a cryptographic operation such that aninput value and an output value have different fixed sizes. For example,where the cryptographic operation is an encryption operation, the inputplaintext may be of a first fixed size (e.g., 254 bytes) and maygenerate an output ciphertext that is of a second fixed size (e.g., 312bytes). Conversely, a decryption operation may accept an inputciphertext that is 312 bytes in size and generate a corresponding outputplaintext that is 254 bytes in size. A security module may be configuredto perform various types of cryptographic operations such as encryptingdata, decrypting data, verifying authenticity of data, and more.Encryption and decryption operations may be extended to supportauthenticated encryption and authenticated decryption, respectively. Asecurity module that has been tampered with or been subject to anattempted tampering may be unable to perform cryptographic operations.

In some embodiments, authenticity of a security module is verified bysuccessfully decrypting a ciphertext. For example, a security modulethat was able to successfully decrypt a first encrypted partition of,e.g., an encrypted payload associated with a cluster manifest, atteststo the authenticity of the security module and verifies that thesecurity module was not tampered with and is in working condition.Security modules may have interconnects that allow the security modulesof a network-attachable data transfer device to securely communicatewith each other (e.g., the interconnect includes tamper-resistantcapabilities such that measurement of signals such as electrical signalsacross the interconnect is not possible without detection). It should benoted that while FIG. 2 depicts an interconnect between security modules206A and 206B connection, other connections between components may existbut have been omitted for clarity.

In some embodiments, the network-attachable data transfer device 202includes one or more persistent data storage 208 components. Persistentdata storage media may include non-volatile storage such as hard drives,tape drives, magnetic drives, non-volatile flash memory such as solidstate drives, and the like. A persistent storage medium may be capableof storing large amounts of data, such as encrypted data (e.g., from alarge data store such as a customer storage system) during shipment fromone data facility to another data facility. In some embodiments, thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 202 receives the data to bestored via a network connection accessible through the enclosure 218 viathe network interface 216, and provides access to the persistent storagemedium as a network-attached storage device. In some examples, thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 202 receives the data to bestore from another cluster device via a communication session such as acryptographically protected communication session (e.g., TLS session).

In some embodiments, the persistent data storage 208 operates inconnection with the persistent data storage of other network-attachabledata transfer devices in a cluster. For example, in some embodiments,data is encoded according to a redundancy coding scheme, such as by useof one or more erasure codes, to generate a plurality of shards to bedistributed amongst and stored across multiple media within and/oracross multiple network-attachable data transfer devices of a cluster.Furthermore, the data storage 208 may include multiple data storagedevices that store multiple data components for a given data object. Forexample, the multiple data storage devices of a given data transferdevice 202 may store data encoded into shards according to oneredundancy coding scheme and distributed amongst the data storagedevices, and the data those shards represent may in turn be encoded intoa different set of shards according to second redundancy coding schemeand distributed amongst data transfer devices of a cluster for storage.The redundancy coding scheme(s) used may be the same or different, and,as described in further detail below, the shards generated therefrom maybe erasure coded (e.g., only generating derived shards), bundle encoded(into identity and derived shards), grid encoded (multiple intersectingbundles of bundle-encoded shards), duplicated relative to othergenerated shards, and/or generated according to any other suitableencoded. Furthermore, as may be contemplated, a given shard may besubject to multiple redundancy coding schemes, and/or a given redundancycoding scheme may include multiple types of encoding.

A network-attachable data transfer device 202 may have one or moreprocessors 210 such as central processing units (CPUs) and/or graphicsprocessing units (GPUs) that are capable of performing variouscomputational operations, such as cryptographic operations. In someembodiments, a network-attachable data transfer device 202 has one ormore motherboards that each include some or all of the componentsillustrated in FIG. 2, such as one or more processing units such as theprocessor 210. Furthermore, in some embodiments, each of themotherboards includes at least one security module (e.g., the securitymodule 206A and the security module 206B reside on differentmotherboards of the data transfer device 202).

The network-attachable data transfer device 202 may also include adisplay device 212, which includes an outward-facing electronic display.The electronic display may be used to display a destination location(e.g., in lieu of a shipping label). The electronic display mayincorporate various types of display technologies such as low-powerelectronic-ink (e-ink), organic light emitting diodes (OLED), liquidcrystal display (LCD), active-matrix organic light-emitting diode(AMOLED), flexible displays, and other such technologies. The displaymay further be a touch-screen display that a customer may interact withusing a finger, stylus, or other input device. The network-attachabledata transfer device 202 may be configured with multiple displays usingmultiple display technologies. The display may be visible to a customer,postal employee, etc. through the protective exterior enclosure 218.

The display device 212 may further include other components, such as aprocessor, a cryptoprocessor, data storage, a network interface, and thelike. The display device 212 may communicate with other components ofthe data transfer device 202 using its own components. For example, thedisplay device may connect, via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) or otherdata connection, with the switching device 224 so as to issue commandsto the switching device 224 as well as to provide feedback regarding theoperation of the switching device (as well as that of the data transferdevice 202 as a whole) via its electronic display. As another example,the display device 212 may have access to the security modules 206A,206B so as to issue commands to and receive information back therefrom.As yet another example, the display device 212 may receive commandsand/or other information from processor 210, so as to then translatesuch commands into actions (e.g., displaying certain information on itselectronic display, issuing commands of its own in response to, e.g.,the switching device, and the like). The display device 212 may includea network connection, such as a wireless network connection, so as tocommunicate with other network devices (e.g., other display devices ofother data transfer devices, as well as with other devices or servicesover the Internet).

A human interface device (HID) 214 may also be included as part of anetwork-attachable data transfer device 202. The human interface device214 may be used to unlock the device—for example, a customer may unlocka device by: entering a password into an alphanumeric keyboard ordisplay device (e.g., touchscreen); entering a personal identificationnumber (PIN) or unlock code; performing a biometric verification using,for example, speech, fingerprint, and/or iris recognition using one ormore sensors. Embodiments in accordance with this disclosure may use anycombination of the techniques described herein as part of a process forunlocking a network-attachable data transfer device 202. A touchscreendisplay, such as the display of the display device 212, may be a humaninterface device. The human interface device 214 may be connected to thedisplay device 212, another component of the data transfer device 202,or both. A locked network-attachable data transfer device may receivethe verification data (password, PIN code, fingerprint data, etc.),perform an authentication process (e.g., verify that the providedpassword matches the user account associated with the device and/orunlock), and then unlock the device. The verification data may be usedas part of a decryption process where an encrypted cluster manifest isdecrypted and made available for use by the system.

The network-attachable data transfer device 202 may further include anetwork interface 216. The network interface may be used as an interfacebetween an external network (e.g., a computer network or a serviceprovider network) and the network-attachable data transfer device 202.In some embodiments, the network interface is used to communicate withother devices of a cluster in an ad-hoc manner—for example, varioustypes of decentralized ad hoc networks. In some embodiments, the networkinterface uses a wireless interface such as a Wi-Fi network or acellular network.

The network-attachable data transfer device 202 may have atamper-resistant enclosure 218 that acts as an enclosure to protect thedevice from being physically tampered with. The enclosure may be used tophysically deny access to various internal components and modules suchas RAM, security modules, one or more persistent storage media, andprocessing units, network interfaces, data stored on any of the abovecomponents, and more. In some embodiments, the enclosure 218 is made ofhardened materials and may be ruggedized in accordance with one or moremilitary standards and/or electronics industry standards. The enclosuremay prevent access to internal components while simultaneously allowingaccess to other components, such as a display, external data interface,and/or human interface device that a customer may interact with. Theenclosure 218 may have sensors for detecting kinetics to detect physicaltreatment of the device, such as sensors for measuring force,accelerometers, gyroscopes, etc. The enclosure may further be equippedwith processors and/or memory to monitor sensors. Conditions detected bythe enclosure may cause the system to enter a locked state—for example,detection of the device being subject to strong forces may indicate anattempt to tamper with the device (e.g., by breaking open the enclosureto access internal components).

The data transfer device 202 may include an internal data interface 222and an external data interface 220. The internal data interface 222 mayreside on one or more motherboards of the network-attachable datatransfer device 202, and provides a connection between the processor 210and the data storage 208. Furthermore, the switching device 224 may beconnected interstitially between the internal data interface 222 and thedata storage 208. The internal data interface 222 may use one or more ofany suitable data interface protocols, such as Serial Attached SCSI(SAS), Serial ATA (SATA), Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), FibreChannel, and the like, to negotiate and establish a connection betweenthe processor and the data storage 208, as well as with other devices,such as those connected through the external data interface 220.Similarly, the external data interface 220 may utilize one or more ofthe aforementioned protocols to negotiate and establish a connectionbetween the processor 210, the internal data interface 222, and/ordevices connected directly or indirectly to the external data interface220. The protocol used to connect a device via an external datainterface 220 may be the same or different than a protocol used by theinternal data interface 222 to connect to the data storage 208.

The data transfer device 202 may include a switching device 224. Theswitching device may include a processor, volatile and non-volatilememory, data interface(s) for interacting with the internal datainterface 222, the data storage 208, and/or the external data interface220, a different data interface for interacting with, e.g., theprocessor 210 and/or the display device 212, and the like. In someembodiments, the switching device 224 includes a connection to theinternal data interface 222, a connection to the external data interface220, a connection to the data storage 208, and a connection to each ofthe display device 212 and the processor 210. However, otherconfigurations for the switching device 224 are contemplated, such as alack of a connection with the display device 212 and/or the processor210, etc.

While various components of a network-attachable data transfer devicehave been illustrated in FIG. 2, the network-attachable data transferdevice may be configured with various components added, removed,modified, or some combination thereof. For example, a network-attachabledata transfer device may further include geolocation sensors such as aglobal positioning system (GPS) receiver that may be used as part ofdetermining a shipping address to display. The GPS receiver may also beused to lock the device if it is determined the device is not in anexpected geolocation or that the device is not within a prescribeddistance from an expected path that the shipment of the device isexpected to take.

In some embodiments, the network-attachable data transfer deviceincludes ports and other peripheral connectors that may allow foradditional functionality. For example, peripherals may be attached tothe network-attachable data transfer device via a universal serial bus(USB) that may be accessible through the enclosure 218. In someembodiments, the system supports USB-pluggable security devices such asa portable hardware authentication device that may function as asecurity module. For example, in some cases, a portable hardwareauthentication device may be used to decrypt a partition of an encrypteddata entry as part of the process for obtaining a cryptographic keyencoded in the encrypted data entry. In this way, possession of aportable hardware authentication device may be required to obtain acryptographic key from an encrypted data entry and/or obtain access tothe decrypted contents of an encrypted payload.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example schematic diagram 300 of an integration ofa switching device 304 with a data transfer device, in accordance withsome embodiments. In some embodiments, as previously mentioned, aswitching device 304 is implemented in a data transfer device to controlaccess to data storage 306 of the data transfer device. For example, theswitching device 304 may be connected to both an internal data interface308 and an external data interface 302, where the internal datainterface 308 is used by the processor 310 and other components of thedata transfer device to transact data with the data storage 306 (e.g.,one or more data storage devices, such as hard disk drives, solid statedrives, and the like) during ordinary operation of the data transferdevice. Accordingly, the switching device 304, which also connects tothe data storage, may generally behave transparently with respect to theinternal data interface 308 and the data storage 306. In other words,the processor 310 may access the data storage 306 via the internal datainterface 308 as if the switching device 304 was not interposed betweenthe internal data interface 308 and the data storage 306, so long as theswitching device 304 is in a corresponding mode.

In some embodiments, the switching device 304 is capable of alsoproviding alternative and/or simultaneous access to the data storage306, to varying degrees, via either or both the external data interface302 and the internal data interface 308. For example, in theaforementioned normal operational mode of the data transfer device, theswitching device 304 may provide full access between the processor 310,the internal data interface, and the data storage 306, and limitedaccess to the data storage 306 via externally connected entities via theexternal data interface 302. As another example, the switching device304 may not provide any access to the data storage 306 via the externaldata interface 302, but may listen for connection attempts on theexternal data interface 302.

The various modes of the switching device 304 may be switched via one ormore commands by the processor 310 and/or the display device 312, or inresponse to detection of an event by the switching device 304. Forexample, the switching device 304 may detect or be provided information,such as by the display device 312 and/or the processor 310, a connectionattempt (e.g., via the external data interface), a failure event (e.g.,of the processor, network interface, and/or internal data interface ofthe data transfer device), a direct instruction to switch modes, and thelike.

Command(s), as described throughout this disclosure, include anydirection to perform an action. In some embodiments, a command conformsto a standard or protocol usable by a submitting entity to signal thedesired action, and understandable by the receiving entity to performthat action. In some embodiments, the command does not conform to anystandard or protocol and is submitted by a submitting entity toindicate, to a receiving entity, to perform a specific action (and thereceiving entity interprets the form and/or content of the indication soas to perform the action in response). For example, a submitting and/ora receiving entity uses general-purpose input/output (GPIO) to issueand/or receive the command. In some embodiments, a single entity mayboth submit and receive a command. In some embodiments, a single entitymay both submit and receive the same command (i.e., self-issue a commandso as to cause itself to perform an action).

Furthermore, a given command may be a sub-command of a differentcommand. For example, a command may include an action that results inone or more subactions, and thus include multiple implied commands. Insome embodiments, commands are discrete. However, it is contemplatedthat, in some embodiments, some commands utilized in a givenimplementation are discrete commands, and other commands aresubcommands, implied commands, etc. from a different command. As may becontemplated, commands may include simple, formless low-level electricalsignaling (e.g., in certain implementations using GPIO), more complexforms (such as processor/instruction-set-level and/or protocol-levelcommands, such as SATA, SCSI, and/or USB commands), and/or high levelindications (such as API and/or webservice calls), any of which mayinclude and/or be part of commands of other types and/or levels ofabstraction.

As mentioned, the commands and/or decisions to switch modes may beissued or determined in response to manual interaction (e.g., with thedisplay device and/or as received by the processor), in connection withdetection of an event, such as a connection event or a failure event,and the like. Depending on the desired access to the data storage, e.g.,related to a diagnostic, recovery, or mitigation process, the switchingdevice 304 processes such commands to connect the data storage to eitheror both the external data interface 302 and/or the internal datainterface 308 in accordance with the command and/or determination.

As mentioned, in some embodiments, the switching device 304 includes aprocessor and other components that allow it to make its owndetermination, in a similar fashion, of which interface(s) to connect tothe data storage 306, as well as access to one or more security modules314. The security module(s) 314 may be the same security module(s) ofthe data transfer device as discussed above in connection with FIG. 2.In other words, in some embodiments, the switching device 304 has accessto the security modules used by the data transfer device to encryptand/or decrypt data, such as portions of the cluster manifest, the datato be stored on the data storage 306, and the like. In some embodiments,the security module 314 is a different security module than the mainsecurity module(s) of the data transfer device. In such embodiments, thesecurity module 314 may be external to the data transfer device,integrated into the display device 312, and/or integrated into theswitching device 304. The switching device 304 uses the security module314, directly or indirectly, to authenticate the credentials of a deviceattempting to connect with the external data interface 302, according totechniques described in further detail in connection with at least FIG.5 below.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example environment 400 in which a plurality ofdata transfer devices may be implemented to provide scalable dataservices, in accordance with some embodiments.

A plurality of data transfer devices, configured in a cluster 414, maybe configured to mimic the operation of a service of the computingresource service provider 412 without relying on some or anycapabilities of the computing resource service provider 412. Forexample, the cluster of data transfer devices 414 may provide a certainlevel of storage, durability, computational capability, and the like,that would otherwise be available by provisioning a similar level ofcapability directly from the computing resource service provider 212.Transfer of data (e.g., data 402) and provisioning of capabilities maybe transparent, from the perspective of the connecting client device 404interacting therewith, as between the clustered data transfer devices414 and the computing resource service provider 412.

In some embodiments, the quantity of and/or capabilities delivered bythe clustered data transfer devices may be scaled up or down on demand,such as by requisition of additional data transfer devices to add to thecluster, or by removal of one or more data transfer devices from thecluster. Such scaling requests may be made by the customer entity 404and directed to the computing resource service provider 412, the cluster414, or may be implied based on operational parameters of either thecluster 414 or the computing resource service provider 412.

The cluster may include a local version of interfaces exposed to theclient device entity 404, such as application programming interfaces(APIs) or web service interfaces, that are similar to those provided bythe computing resource service provider 412, and thus facilitatetransparent and/or flexible conversion and/or extension betweencapabilities provided directly by the cluster 414 and those provided bythe computing resource service provider 412 to which the cluster isassociated. As an example, the client device 404 may provide, over anetwork 408, data 402 for archival or storage on durable and/orpersistent storage 406 of the devices of the cluster 414, such as abundle of redundancy coded shards 410. Depending on how and to whatextent the cluster 414 has been provisioned to store the data and/orprocess the data with the redundancy code, the client device 404 maysubmit data 402 to either the cluster itself 414 or the computingresource service provider 412 via the network 408, and the data may beprocessed, transferred, and/or stored according to the level ofprovisioning, much as a computing resource service provider 412 withmultiple regions and/or availability zones provides a unified interfaceand transparent functionality with respect to the specific regions oravailability zones in which the data is processed is stored.Accordingly, in some embodiments, the cluster of data storage devices414 behaves and is treated as simply another region or portion of thecomputing resource service provider 412, and may be scaled up and downaccording to request, demand, and the like.

The scaling of the capabilities of the cluster of data storage devices414 may depend on the specific purpose or purposes provisioned from thecluster of data storage devices 414. For example, a customer associatedwith the client device 404 provisions (or requests, from the computingresource service provider 412, the provisioning of) the cluster of datastorage devices 414 for a specific quantity of data storage space at aspecified level of reliability and/or durability. As the customer'sreliability, storage space, and/or durability requirements for thecluster changes, e.g., by a request of the customer via the clientdevice 404, by a process of the cluster 414 itself (such as using amonitor or watch dog process that alerts the cluster 414, or thecomputing resource service provider 412, when the provisioned limits arebeing approached or if a level of usage drops below a specifiedproportion of the provisioned limits), and/or by a command or otherprocess of the computing resource service provider 412 to which thecluster is associated, additional data transfer devices may be added tothe cluster or unneeded capacity/capability may be removed from thecluster (e.g., by removing data transfer devices from the cluster,throttling the existing devices in the cluster, or remotely provisioningunneeded capability/capacity to other clusters, the computing resourceservice provider 412, or the like). In circumstances where additionalcapability/capacity is needed in the short term, the computing resourceservice provider 412 may directly provide the additionalcapability/capacity for a period of time, in some cases indefinitely,and/or until additional data transfer devices can be added to thecluster 414.

The cluster 414 may be configured to be addressable by an externalentity—such as through its API, and by the client device 404, thecomputing resource service provider 412, or related processes, systems,or devices—such that any of the constituent data storage devices canserve as an external point of communication of the cluster 414 as awhole. For example, the cluster 414 may be configured as or in a similarfashion to that of a distributed hash ring. As another example, anexternal (or internal) load balancing method or system may be employedsuch that a unified external address identifier (e.g., an IP address orsimilar), can internally (or externally) be changeably directed to anyof the constituent data transfer devices of the cluster to process theincoming request, or its eventual reply, for further processing (e.g.,using the computational or other capabilities of the cluster).

As may be contemplated, the cluster 414 may be configured (and in somecases optimized) to provide one or more types of capability. Suchcapabilities may include one or more of the following: reliability, datastorage capacity, physical size, computational capacity (e.g., as may beprovided by graphics processors via OpenCL or GPGPU, central processingunits, specialized ASICs or other specialized processors, networkprocessors, cryptography processors, and the like), durability,throughput (either retrieval or storage), latency (either retrieval orstorage), data bandwidth, electrical power consumption/efficiency, andthe like. The cluster 414 may be optimized for one or more of thesetypes of capabilities, but still be able to provide other types ofcapabilities for which it is not necessarily (or not primarily)optimized.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example environment 500 in which an unhealthy datatransfer device negotiates authentication information with a healthydata transfer device attempting to connect through an external datainterface, in accordance with some embodiments.

As previously mentioned, external access to data storage of a datatransfer device, such as via an external data interface, may be limitedto authorized entities. For example, an unhealthy data transfer device,as previously discussed, includes a switching device 514 that allowsconditional access to data storage 516. The access is conditional uponverifying credentials, such as a token, a certificate, or othercryptographic information, associated with the external access request.Some or all data transfer devices of a cluster may be configured assuch; e.g., it may be contemplated that a healthy data transfer devicehaving data storage 506 may, under certain circumstances, becomeunhealthy, and thus provide conditional access to data storage 506 in asimilar fashion as described herein for the example unhealthy datatransfer device and its corresponding data storage 516.

In the illustrated example, in response to an attempted connection bythe healthy data transfer device, the switching device 514 of theunhealthy data transfer device performs an authentication process toconfirm the authority of the healthy device attempting the connection.The security module 508 of the healthy device provides, to the receivingdevice either with the connection attempt/request or separately from it(e.g., in response to an authentication challenge of the unhealthydevice), cryptographic material 510. The cryptographic material 510 maybe sourced from the security module 508 and passed through the switchingdevice 504 to external data interface 502, which then submits it to thecorresponding external data interface 512 of the unhealthy device.

Continuing the example, the external data interface 512 passes thereceived cryptographic material to the switching device 514, which thenutilizes the security module 518 to confirm the authenticity of therequest by processing the received cryptographic material. In someembodiments, the cryptographic material may be a shared secret betweenthe healthy and unhealthy device. In some embodiments, the submittedcryptographic material 510 may be ciphertext that is encrypted with apublic key of a public/private cryptographic pair, and the correspondingprivate key is held in the security module 518 and is necessary todecrypt and verify the ciphertext. However, other examples of two-partyauthentication are contemplated hereby, including the various techniquesdiscussed in connection with, e.g., FIGS. 1 and 2 above.

To the extent that the switching device 514 determines or receivesinformation that the cryptographic material 510 corresponds tocryptographic material 520 (e.g., in the shared secret and/orpublic/private pair examples just provided), the switching device 514then provides further full or otherwise additional access, via theexternal data interface 512, to the data storage 516. In someembodiments, the device providing access to its data storage 516confirms, e.g., using a cluster manifest associated with a cluster towhich it belongs, whether the connecting device corresponds to, and canproperly decrypt, an encrypted payload included thereon, beforeproviding such access. In some embodiments, the security modules 508,518 may simply be “dummy” or “dongle” devices attached to the respectiveswitching device 504, 514, that provide basic cryptographic processingso as to provide for the authentication process just mentioned.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example environment 600 in which a degradedcluster 610 uses an abnormally operating data transfer device 616 toprovide data 608 c stored thereon in response to read requests 604, suchas from a client device 602, in accordance with some embodiments.

In some embodiments, after an unhealthy data transfer device 616 hassuccessfully connected with a healthy device 614 to serve as a “host” or“surrogate” for its data storage, the now degraded cluster 610 continuesto process read and write requests for data 606. In the illustratedexample, a client device 602 issues a read request 604 for data 606stored on the cluster 610. As mentioned, data to be stored on devices ofa cluster may be processed by one or more redundancy codes to generateredundancy coded shards, which in turn are distributed for storage onthe various devices of the cluster. Data stored in this manner, asmentioned, is resistant to availability loss or actual loss, as fewershards than the total number of shards generated for a given set of dataare needed to retrieve the entirety of the data. As may be appreciated,the redundancy coding scheme used may be associated with the number ofactive devices in a given cluster.

For example, the cluster 610 of three data transfer devices 612, 614,616 may implement a redundancy coding scheme generating three shards,one each per device, where two of the shards are sufficient to recoverthe entirety of the data represented. Accordingly, during nominalcluster operation, a read request may involve retrieval of shards fromtwo or three devices of the cluster, while a write request would involvewriting a shard to each of the three devices.

As illustrated, the data 606 is sharded into a set of encoded shards 608a, 608 b, 608 c, distributed respectively to healthy devices 612, 614,and unhealthy device 616. As may be contemplated, an arrangement where agiven healthy device 614 must respond to requests for both datacomponents 608 b and 608 c can potentially result in twice the load onthe healthy data transfer device 614 when servicing requests for data606. In some embodiments, therefore, cluster metadata, such as thecluster manifest associated with the cluster 610, is updated to reflectthe temporary topology of the degraded cluster. Accordingly, the cluster610 may treat the data storage of the unhealthy data transfer device 616in a different fashion as data storage of other data transfer devices612, 614 within the cluster 610 during the period of time over which thecluster is operating in a degraded fashion.

For example, the data storage devices of the unhealthy data transferdevice 616 may be marked as read-only, and preferentially avoided infavor of other data storage (e.g., of healthy devices 612, 614) storingor encoding the same data. In the illustrated example, the data 606 isrepresented, as mentioned, by three encoded shards 608 a, 608 b, 608 c,any two of which are sufficient to regenerate the data 606. Thus, in theevent that one or more operational parameters associated with one ormore of the data storage devices 612, 614, 616, or more generally, thecluster 610 indicate that regenerating the data from only shards 608 aand 608 b would be sufficient to meet a performance requirementassociated with the read request 604 (or the cluster 610), the cluster610 may collectively decide to perform the regeneration of data 606without using shard 608 c stored on the unhealthy device 616. Theoperational parameters include, but are not limited to, system load,network traffic level, available data storage space, datadurability/availability, maximum input/output operations per unit time(such as TOPS), read/write/request latency, throughput, reliabilityindicia of the data transfer device 612, 614, 616 and/or the componentsrespectively associated therewith, service-level agreement (SLA)response and/or request fulfillment times, and the like. The performancerequirement may involve similar parameters.

Conversely, a cluster 610 operating in this manner may further adjustits operation with regard to both read and write requests and operationwhile the cluster is degraded and one or more of the performancerequirements and/or operational parameters justifies the use, even ifpreferentially avoided, of data stored on an unhealthy data transferdevice 616. In the illustrated example, the one device (or shard) marginof error is reduced to zero (i.e., any additional device failures wouldresult in loss of data or accessibility thereto). To the extent that adegraded operating state of the device 616 occurs as a result of otheraspects of the data transfer device 616 so as to allow the data storageof that device to continue to be capable of providing the data, theaforementioned external data interface-enabled connection of the datastorage of the degraded device 616 to a healthy data transfer device 614allows the shard 608 c to be available as necessary. Accordingly, thedata 606 can still be recovered if healthy device 612 also fails, asdevice 614 provides the requisite two shards 608 b, 608 c sufficient toregenerate the data 606. The use of the shard 608 c may, as mentioned,be warranted under other conditions, such as a requirement foradditional throughput for the data 606, or to provide the data 606within an SLA associated with the read request 604 (e.g., as set by thecomputing resource service provider and/or a customer thereof).

FIG. 7 illustrates an example environment 700 in which a degradedcluster 714 stores data components on other devices than a partiallyavailable data transfer device 720 during a period of degradedoperation, in accordance with some embodiments.

Further to FIG. 6, if the data storage of the degraded data transferdevice 720 is reliable enough to store data, in some embodiments, datawrites may continue to be committed to that data storage if theperformance requirements and/or operational parameters so justifies,e.g., if the cluster as a whole is short on storage space. In such anexample, the redundancy coding scheme, which generates three shards fora given data object and is used to generate the shards 710 a, 710 b, 710c, may continue to generate sets of three shards for additional incomingdata objects, with one device 716 storing one shard and the device 718“hosting” the data storage of the unhealthy or offline device 720storing two shards, one on its own data storage, and one on the“external” data storage.

However, if the data storage of the degraded data transfer device cannotbe verified as reliable for write operations, or if other performancerequirements and/or operational parameters do not justify acountervailing preference to avoid storage of further data on thedegraded device 720, the cluster 714 may implement a differentredundancy coding scheme to account for the remaining devices and/or thedegraded device, so as to retain a desired level of availability,durability, etc. In the illustrated example, a client device 702 issuesa write request 704 for data 706 while the cluster 714 is in a degradedoperational state. Rather than using the redundancy coding scheme togenerate three shards therefrom as normal, the cluster may implement adifferent redundancy coding scheme that generates only two shards 712 d,712 e, so as to store one shard a piece on the health devices 716, 718,where only one of the shards is sufficient to retrieve all of the data706 upon request, and omitting the data storage of the “tethered” device720.

As may be contemplated, in some embodiments where shards (e.g., 712 d,712 e) are generated, these shards may be duplicates of each other(i.e., the redundancy coding scheme used generates an additional copy ofthe data and stores each copy as an individual shards). In scenarioswhere the redundancy coding scheme generates one or more shardscontaining original data (or encoded data constituting that originaldata), such as the case where the redundancy coding scheme usesreplication in full or in part, bundle encoding and/or grid encoding(e.g., generating one or more identity shards), a corresponding read ofthe data so encoded may be performed using a single shard containingsuch data. As such, a given device storing the shard can, in someembodiments, provide that data, e.g., in response to a request to readthat data, without participation of other shards and/or other devices inthe cluster.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example environment 800 in which a clustermanifest is implemented by a cluster to administer and maintain membersof the cluster, in accordance with some embodiments. In someembodiments, a cluster 802 of network-attachable data transfer devicescommunicate with each other, e.g., via a network. A network-attachabledata transfer device of a cluster may be in a locked or unlocked state.For example, FIG. 8 illustrates two cluster devices 804A and 804B thatare in an unlocked state and a third cluster device 806 that is in alocked state (e.g., a new or replacement data transfer device). FIG. 8further illustrates steps that may be performed, in connection with acluster manifest, as part of a process to unlock a cluster device 806 ina locked state.

A cluster 802 of network-attachable data transfer devices may refer toone or more network-attachable data transfer devices that are configuredto operate together. For example, as discussed elsewhere herein (e.g.,in connection with FIG. 4), a cluster 802 may be used to provideexpanded data storage and/or processing capabilities beyond what asingle device is capable of providing. Individual network-attachabledata transfer devices may be configured to operate individually (e.g.,without coordination with other devices) or may be configured to operateas a cluster (e.g., through coordinating storage of data and metadata ina structured manner between multiple devices of a cluster). Whenconfigured to operate as a cluster, data and metadata may be distributedbetween devices in a cluster. For example, devices of a cluster mayinclude a cluster manifest 808 associated with the cluster that includesinformation related to operation of the device within the cluster,including operation settings, configuration data, and networkinformation. A cluster manifest in accordance with various embodimentsis described in more detail below in FIG. 9.

As previously mentioned, utilizing a cluster to perform data storage hasvarious advantages over using a single device to perform datastorage—for example, using multiple devices in a cluster configurationmay increase data throughput and capacity, may increase availability(e.g., if a single network-attachable data transfer device of a clusterbecomes defective, operations may be offloaded to other devices in thecluster), reliability (e.g., if a single network-attachable datatransfer device of the cluster becomes defective, data in othernetwork-attachable data transfer devices may be unaffected by suchfailures), and perform load distribution functions. For example, datamay be partitioned into shards across multiple network-attachable datatransfer devices of a cluster in such a manner that individual devicesof a network-attachable data transfer device may each be a source for asubset of a larger set of data. For example, data from a database may besharded across multiple cluster devices by a horizontal partitioning ofdata such that cluster devices are configured to each store rows of adatabase—such a configuration may be used to improve performance,reliability, and availability of data.

Individual network-attachable data transfer devices may be in a lockedstate or an unlocked state. A locked network-attachable data transferdevice such as the network-attachable data transfer device 806illustrated in FIG. 8 may have restricted functionality such that one ormore features, functions, operations, requests, etc., are not accessiblevia a locked network-attachable data transfer device which areaccessible via an unlocked network-attachable data transfer device. Insome embodiments, a customer may receive a network-attachable datatransfer device in a locked state and unlock the device. A lockednetwork-attachable data transfer device may include a locked clustermanifest. In some embodiments, a customer interacts with a humaninterface device (HID) to unlock the device—for example, a customer mayunlock a device by: entering a password into an alphanumeric keyboard ordisplay device (e.g., touchscreen); entering a personal identificationnumber (PIN) or unlock code; performing a biometric verification using,for example, speech, fingerprint, and/or iris recognition. Embodimentsin accordance with this disclosure may use any combination of thetechniques described herein as part of a process for unlocking anetwork-attachable data transfer device. A locked network-attachabledata transfer device may receive the verification data (password, PINcode, fingerprint data, etc.), perform an authentication process (e.g.,verify that that the provided password matches the user accountassociated with the device and/or unlock), and then unlock the device.The verification data may be used as part of a decryption process wherean encrypted cluster manifest is decrypted and made available for use bythe system.

A cluster manifest may include an encrypted payload and encrypted datathat, when decrypted, encodes a cryptographic key. The encrypted payloadand the encrypted data may be associated with a particularnetwork-attachable data transfer device of the cluster, for example,through a data structure and/or mapping. The structure of clustermanifests in accordance with various embodiments contemplated in thescope of this disclosure is described below in greater detail inconnection with FIG. 9.

The encrypted data associated with a network-attachable data transferdevice may be decryptable using one or more security modules of thenetwork-attachable data transfer device. In some embodiments, a firstportion of the encrypted data may be decryptable by a first securitymodule of a network-attachable data transfer device, a second portion ofthe encrypted data may be decryptable by a second security module of anetwork-attachable data transfer device, and so on, such that eachportion of the encrypted data may be decrypted using a particularsecurity module of the network-attachable data transfer device.Furthermore, in some embodiments, such as those described above, eachindividual security module of a network-attachable data transfer devicemay individually lack access to sufficient cryptographic material toobtain the cryptographic key from the encrypted data. For example, in anembodiment, a cryptographic key is partitioned into two halves, thefirst half is encrypted using a first security module, and the secondhalf is encrypted using a second security module. The two encryptedhalves may correspond to the encrypted data described above and may bestored in a cluster manifest as the encrypted data described above. Insome embodiments, the cryptographic key is partitioned into N-partswhere the number of parts is equal to the number of on-board securitymodules for a particular network-attachable data transfer device, andeach security module is used to encrypt a corresponding partition of thecryptographic key.

The cryptographic key may be re-assembled from the encrypted data byparsing the encrypted data to obtain the individual encryptedpartitions, using each of the security modules to decrypt thecorresponding encrypted partition and combining each of the decryptedpartitions to form the cryptographic key. The cryptographic key may beused to decrypt an encrypted payload. The encrypted payload may includeexecutable code, data, additional cryptographic material such as digitalcertificates and cryptographic keys, or some combination thereof. Thepayload, when decrypted, may be usable by the network-attachable datatransfer device to perform one or more features, functions, operations,requests, and the like. In some embodiments, the decrypted payload maybe required by the system to make one or more features, functions,operations, requests, etc., accessible to a customer, user, or subsystem(e.g., customer applications installed on the network-attachable datatransfer device). In some embodiments, a cluster manifest may, for eachnetwork-attachable data transfer device of the cluster, include: anidentifier; an encrypted payload; and encrypted data that, whendecrypted, encodes a cryptographic key that may be used to decrypt theencrypted payload associated with the particular network-attachable datatransfer device.

The illustrated cluster 802 shows, as an example, two unlockednetwork-attachable data transfer devices 804A and 804B. In someembodiments, a first network-attachable data transfer device 804A has alocked cluster manifest that a customer unlocks by providing a PIN code.Upon authenticating the PIN code, the cluster manifest 808 may beobtained by the first network-attachable data transfer device 804A. Thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 804A may query the clustermanifest using its identifier to obtain an encrypted payload andencrypted data that, when decrypted, encodes a cryptographic key thatmay be used to decrypt the encrypted payload. The network-attachabledata transfer device 804A may use one or more security modules todecrypt the encrypted data and obtain the cryptographic key that maysubsequently be used to decrypt the payload. The network-attachable datatransfer device 804A may then extract, from the payload associated withthe network-attachable data transfer device 804A, a first cryptographickey 810A that may be used to make one or more features, functions,operations, requests, etc., accessible (e.g., to a customer). Thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 804A may then indicate that itis in an unlocked state. The network-attachable data transfer device804A may also optionally perform steps to join a cluster network, suchas detecting the existence of other cluster devices on a network andconnecting to those devices using a cryptographically protectedcommunications session such as a Transport Layer Security (TLS) session.

A second network-attachable data transfer device 804B may also have alocked cluster manifest that the customer similarly unlocks—for example,using the same PIN code. However, note that in some embodiments, eachnetwork-attachable data transfer device may have a unique PIN code suchthat a different PIN code may be used to authenticate different devicesof a cluster. The second network-attachable data transfer device 804Bmay query the cluster manifest for an encrypted payload and encrypteddata associated with the second network-attachable data transfer device804B, which may be separate and distinct from those obtained by thefirst network-attachable data transfer device 804A. Likewise, the secondnetwork-attachable data transfer device 804B may use its securitymodules to decrypt the encrypted data to obtain a cryptographic keyusing techniques described herein and obtain a cryptographic key thatmay be used to decrypt the encrypted payload associated with the secondnetwork-attachable data transfer device 804B. Note that the securitymodules of the first network-attachable data transfer device 804A maynot have access to sufficient (or correct) cryptographic material (e.g.,cryptographic keys) to decrypt the encrypted data associated with thesecond network-attachable data transfer device 804B. The cryptographickey associated with the second network-attachable data transfer device804B may be used to decrypt the encrypted payload associated with thesecond network-attachable data transfer device 804B and obtain a secondcryptographic key 810B associated with the second network-attachabledata transfer device 804B that may be used to make one or more features,functions, operations, requests, etc., accessible (e.g., to a customer).

Note that different network-attachable data transfer devices of acluster may support different features—for example, the firstnetwork-attachable data transfer device 804A may support encryptionunder one set of cryptographic algorithms whereas the secondnetwork-attachable data transfer device 804B may support encryptionunder a second, different, set of cryptographic algorithms. It should befurther noted that while the cluster manifest 808 may be shared amongnetwork-attachable data transfer devices of a cluster, in someembodiments, each network-attachable data transfer device of the clustermay maintain its own cryptographic material which is not shared withother devices of the cluster. For example, the first network-attachabledata transfer device 804A may keep its cryptographic key 810A internallyand not share it with other devices of the cluster (or other externaldevices outside of the network).

Furthermore, to the extent that the cluster manifest 808 is updated(e.g., an encrypted payload is updated, such as in connection withprovision of a new or replacement device), the cluster manifest may bepropagated either by a newly joining/joined device, or provided by acomputing resource service provider. For example, as part of beingprovisioned by a computing resource service provider, a replacementdevice may be delivered to customer premises to be added to the cluster802, as locked device 806. The locked device 806 may include an updatedcluster manifest, which may include an updated encrypted payload thatincludes data recovery instructions and further may include an updatedmapping between payloads in the cluster manifest and identifiers ofdevices to which they are intended to apply (e.g., including a referenceto the replacement device replacing a reference to the device beingreplaced). The payload, upon being decrypted, may be executed by thereplacement device to perform various data recovery actions related tothe replacement process, such as copying and/or regenerating datapreviously stored on the device being replaced. The replacement devicemay then propagate the some or all of the updated cluster manifest toother devices of the cluster, e.g., to reflect the updated reference asmentioned.

In some embodiments, a customer may receive a network-attachable datatransfer device and begin using the network-attachable data transferdevice individually (i.e., not in a clustered mode of operation). Thecustomer may determine, for various reasons, that an individualnetwork-attachable data transfer device is appropriate under thecircumstances—for example, the customer may determine that the datastorage capacity of a single network-attachable data transfer device issufficient for the expected use case or that under certain non-technicalconstraints (e.g., lack of money to order additional network-attachabledata transfer devices) a network-attachable data transfer device issufficient for the customer's needs. The customer may begin to transferand/or collect data on the network-attachable data transfer deviceoperating individually. At a later point in time, the customer maydetermine that it is appropriate to use additional network-attachabledata transfer devices—for example, the data storage capacity needed forthe use case exceeds the expected storage needs as well as the datastorage capacity of a single network-attachable data transfer device. Acustomer may acquire additional network-attachable data transfer devicesand provision the network-attachable data transfer devices (includingthe initial network-attachable data transfer device) to operate in acluster mode while still retaining the data and analysis previouslyperformed by the initial network-attachable data transfer device in asingle-device mode of operation (i.e., operating individually as opposedto as part of a cluster).

It should be noted that in some embodiments a network-attachable datatransfer device will be a member of multiple clusters. For example, anetwork-attachable data transfer device such as the network-attachabledata transfer device 804B shown in FIG. 8 can be part of a first cluster802 and ingest data as part of the first cluster 802 (e.g., in a firstdata storage partition) and simultaneously be part of a second cluster(not illustrated in FIG. 8) that includes a second set ofnetwork-attachable data transfer devices. Network-attachable datatransfer devices and/or clusters may have configuration data related tothe use of a device in multiple clusters. For example, anetwork-attachable data transfer device may be configured such that itallows or prohibits the particular device to join or be a member ofmultiple clusters. Likewise, a cluster may be configured (e.g., viametadata stored in the cluster manifest) to allow or prohibit devices ofthe particular cluster to join or be a member of another cluster. Insome embodiments, a network-attachable data transfer device isconfigured such that, as part of joining a cluster such as the cluster802 illustrated in FIG. 8, the network-attachable data transfer deviceis provisioned for use on the cluster. The provisioning of the devicefor use on the cluster may include erasing, deleting, reformatting,resetting, copying and/or regeneration of data, and/or performing otheroperations such that traces of previous usages of the device (e.g.,programs, applications, data) from a previous use are removed.

FIG. 8 further illustrates an example cluster having a lockednetwork-attachable data transfer device 806. In some embodiments, acustomer receives a network-attachable data transfer device from aprovider in a locked state. The network-attachable data transfer devicemay be shipped to the customer in a locked state so as to prevent thenetwork-attachable data transfer device from being tampered with. Forexample, a locked network-attachable data transfer device may be limitedin its functionality and not be operable to run executable code, loaddata, or perform other functions/features that would otherwise bepossible to perform with an unlocked network-attachable data transferdevice. As a result, a malicious party that may intercept thenetwork-attachable data transfer device during shipment to the customerwill be prevented from loading and running executable code such asmalware (e.g., software that damages the computer system) or spyware(e.g., software that eavesdrops on the activities of a computer systemon behalf of another party) on the network-attachable data transferdevice. Furthermore, a customer that receives a network-attachable datatransfer device in a locked state may have the opportunity to inspectthe system both physically and programmatically prior to unlocking thenetwork-attachable data transfer device and joining it to a clusternetwork.

In accordance with various embodiments, the locked network-attachabledata transfer device 806 of the cluster 802 may perform anauthentication process with information provided from an unlockednetwork-attachable data transfer device of the cluster 802. The resultof a successful authentication process may verify that hardware of thenetwork-attachable data transfer device (e.g., security modules) has notbeen tampered with and may further serve to unlock thenetwork-attachable data transfer device (i.e., transition thenetwork-attachable data transfer device from a locked state to anunlocked state). FIG. 8 illustrates an unlocked network-attachable datatransfer device 804A providing a cluster manifest 808 to the lockednetwork-attachable data transfer device 806 and steps that may beperformed by the locked network-attachable data transfer device 806 aspart of an unlocking process.

In some cases, a customer may manually unlock each network-attachabledata transfer device of a cluster such as in the manner described above.However, management of a cluster may become difficult as the number ofdevices in a cluster grows. Furthermore, a customer may not always beavailable to unlock a network-attachable data transfer device—forexample, if a device loses power outside of normal business hours and asa result of the power outage enters an unlocked state, it may not befeasible and/or practical for a customer to perform a manual unlockprocess, and waiting until the customer is able to perform the manualunlock process may be undesirable. Therefore, it may be advantageous tobe able to perform an automated authentication process that may be usedto unlock a locked device of a cluster.

In an embodiment, a device of the cluster in a locked state receives acluster manifest from another device of the cluster and is able toprogrammatically perform an unlock process that results in the devicetransitioning from a locked state to an unlocked state (i.e., performedwithout steps that require interaction with a human customer).Furthermore, in such an embodiment, the cluster manifest is configuredsuch that an encrypted payload associated with the locked device is onlyaccessible (e.g., via decryption) by the particular locked device andthat no other device of the cluster has access to cryptographic materialsufficient to decrypt the encrypted payload. In such an embodiment,content stored in the payload is distributed to other devices of thecluster but is still kept secret from those devices. As mentioned, insome embodiments, the cluster manifest (updated, in some cases) isincluded with the locked device 806, and portions thereof are propagatedto other devices of the cluster once the locked device has been unlockedand joined to the cluster.

FIG. 8 illustrates steps for performing an automated authentication 812using devices of a cluster 802, an authentication being able to unlock alocked network-attachable data transfer device of the cluster. As partof an automated authentication 812, a device of the cluster such as thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 804A shown in FIG. 8 may detectthat another device of the cluster such as the network-attachable datatransfer device 806 should be authenticated. In some cases, a localpower failure may affect one system and cause it to reboot and enter alocked state. An unlocked device of the cluster such as thenetwork-attachable data transfer device 804A may, in response, providean unlocked cluster manifest 808 to the locked network-attachable datatransfer device 806. The locked network-attachable data transfer device806 may use the cluster manifest 808 to perform an authentication 812.

The locked network-attachable data transfer device may process thecluster manifest 808 and parse the manifest to obtain an encryptedpayload and encrypted data associated with the device. The associationmay be stored in the manifest or may be calculated from informationavailable to the system. The encrypted data may then be parsed anddecrypted using one or more security modules of the network-attachabledata transfer device 806, and the decryption results may be used toassemble a cryptographic key that the network-attachable data transferdevice 806 uses to decrypt an encrypted payload. The encrypted payloadmay include cryptographic material (e.g., a cryptographic key) that isusable to perform one or more features, functions, operations, requests,etc. The network-attachable data transfer device 806 may store thecryptographic material in volatile memory, provide an indication thatthe device has transitioned to an unlocked state, establish one or moreconnections with cluster devices, or some combination thereof.

Cryptographic material included in the payload, such as a cryptographicpayload key, may be used part as of one or more processes for storingdata. As discussed in greater detail above in connection with FIG. 2, anetwork-attachable data transfer device may include one or morepersistent storage media. Data that is stored in a persistent storagemedium may be subject to cryptographic operations using thecryptographic payload key. For example, in some embodiments a systemperforms authenticated encryption on all data that is to be stored on anetwork-attachable data transfer device—i.e., a request by a customer tostore “123” may result in an encrypted form of the data “123” beingstored in addition to a corresponding authentication tag. Of course,other cryptographic operations such asencryption-without-authentication, authentication-without-encryption,and more, may be performed in connection with the cryptographic payloadkey. In some embodiments, data stored on a network-attachable datatransfer device is authenticated but not encrypted—for example, in somesystems, data may be stored in plaintext with a corresponding messageauthentication code (MAC) or tag. The data may be viewable to otherentities but cannot be modified without detection as the authenticationtag of the modified data will not match the original data. In this way,other entities may verify that the data, which may be in plaintext, wasgenerated by a network-attachable data transfer device having access tothe cryptographic payload key. Such systems may have performance (e.g.,throughput and latency) advantages over other systems as encryptionoperations are, generally, computationally expensive.

As discussed, numerous variations utilize symmetric and/or asymmetriccryptographic primitives. Symmetric key algorithms may include variousschemes for performing cryptographic operations on data including blockciphers, stream ciphers and digital signature schemes. Example symmetrickey algorithms include the advanced encryption standard (AES), the dataencryption standard (DES), triple DES (3DES), Serpent, Twofish,blowfish, CASTS, RC4 and the international data encryption algorithm(IDEA). Symmetric key algorithms may also include those used to generateoutput of one way functions and include algorithms that utilizehash-based message authentication codes (HMACs), message authenticationcodes (MACs) in general, PBKDF2 and Bcrypt. Asymmetric key algorithmsmay also include various schemes for performing cryptographic operationson data. Example algorithms include those that utilize theDiffie-Hellman key exchange protocol, the digital signature standard(DSS), the digital signature algorithm, the ElGamal algorithm, variouselliptic curve algorithms, password-authenticated key agreementtechniques, the pallier cryptosystem, the RSA encryption algorithm(PKCS#1), the Cramer-Shoup cryptosystem, the YAK authenticated keyagreement protocol, the NTRUEncrypt cryptosystem, the McEliececryptosystem, and others. Elliptic curve algorithms include the ellipticcurve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key agreement scheme, the Elliptic CurveIntegrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES), the Elliptic Curve DigitalSignature Algorithm (ECDSA), the ECMQV key agreement scheme and the ECQVimplicit certificate scheme. Other algorithms and combinations ofalgorithms are also considered as being within the scope of the presentdisclosure and the above is not intended to be an exhaustive list.

In various embodiments, data objects such as the cluster manifest, theencrypted payload(s) included therein, tokens and/or certificatesexchanged between cluster devices and/or between entities attempting toauthenticate for use of external data interface(s) of other datatransfer devices, data (e.g., customer data) encrypted, processed,and/or stored in data storage, etc., may be cryptographicallyverifiable. In one example, cryptographically verifiable data objectsare created to be cryptographically verifiable by the system to whichthe data object is to be provided or another system that operates inconjunction with the system to which the data object is to be provided.For example, the data object may be encrypted so as to be decryptable bythe system that will cryptographically verify the data object, where theability to decrypt the data object serves as cryptographic verificationof the data object. As another example, the data object may be digitallysigned (thereby producing a digital signature of the data object) suchthat the digital signature is verifiable by the system that willcryptographically verify the data object. In other examples, bothencryption and digital signatures are used for cryptographicverifiability and/or security.

The key used to encrypt and/or digitally sign the data object may varyin accordance with various embodiments and the same key is notnecessarily used for both encryption and digital signing, whereapplicable. In some embodiments, a key used to encrypt the data objectis a public key of a public/private key pair where the private key ofthe key pair is maintained securely by the system to which the dataobject is to be provided, thereby enabling the system to decrypt thedata object using the private key of the key pair. Using the public keyto encrypt the data object may include generating a symmetric key, usingthe symmetric key to encrypt the data object, and encrypting thesymmetric key using the public key, where the encrypted symmetric key isprovided to a system with the encrypted data object to enable the systemto use the corresponding private key to decrypt the symmetric key anduse the decrypted symmetric key to decrypt the data object. Further, insome embodiments, the data object is digitally signed using a privatekey of a public/private key pair corresponding to the computer systemthat encrypts and/or digitally signs the data object (e.g., a userdevice). For example, an application may be provisioned with the privatekey and the data object may include a certificate for the private keyfor use by a system for verification of the digital signature of thedata object. Other variations, including variations where a symmetrickey shared between the user computer and the system thatcryptographically verifies the data object can be used to encrypt and/ordigitally sign the data object.

Example cryptographic algorithms used to perform cryptographicoperations described herein include block ciphers and the various modesthat utilize initialization vectors, such as the cipher-block chaining(CBC) mode, propagating cipher-block chaining (PCBC) mode, cipherfeedback mode (CFB), output feedback (OFB) mode, counter (CTR) mode, andother modes, such as authenticated encryption modes such as eXtendedCiphertext Block Chaining (XCBC) mode, Integrity Aware CBC (IACBC) mode,Integrity Aware Parallelizable (IAPM) mode, Offset Codebook (OCB) mode,EAX and EAX Prime modes, Carter-Wegman+CTR (CWC) mode, Counter withCBC-MAC (CCM) mode, Galois/Counter (GCM) mode.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example schematic diagram 900 of a clustermanifest 902, in accordance with some embodiments. The cluster manifest902 may be a cluster manifest in accordance with those described abovein connection with FIG. 8. A cluster manifest 902 may be informationthat is used by a cluster of devices to coordinate operations, shareinformation, and the like. The clusters may be in accordance withclusters described above in connection with FIG. 9 and elsewhere in thisdisclosure. Furthermore, a cluster manifest may be used to distributeand protect secrets among devices in a cluster. A cluster manifest mayinclude; one or more encrypted payloads 904A and 904B; one or moreidentifiers 906A and 906B; and one or more entries of encrypted data908A and 908B.

An identifier may refer to information that may be used to identify aparticular network-attachable data transfer device of a cluster. Forexample, the cluster manifest 902 shown in FIG. 9 includes a firstidentifier 906A and a second identifier 906B that identify differentdevices of the network. Various examples of identifiers that may be usedinclude a globally unique identifier (GUID), universally uniqueidentifier (UUID), media access control address, serial number, and thelike. However, identifiers need not be unique. For example, a countermay be used to assign identifiers for devices as they join the cluster(e.g., first device of the cluster has an ID of 1, the second device hasan ID of 2, and so on) and each device persists the identifier assignedto it upon being added to the cluster. In some embodiments, even if theidentifier is not persisted or is lost, a device can still determine itsidentifier by attempting to sequentially decrypt each encrypted dataentry until it successfully decrypts an entry. It should be noted insome embodiments, the manifest does not include identifiers for anydevices of a cluster, includes identifiers for a strict subset ofdevices in a cluster, or includes identifiers for all devices in acluster. In some embodiments, a device that was unable to locate itsassociated identifier walks the entire list of encrypted data entriesand attempts to decrypt each entry to assemble a valid cryptographic keyuntil it is successful.

In some embodiments, one or more entries of encrypted data are stored ina cluster manifest. In the example embodiment illustrated in FIG. 9, thecluster manifest 902 includes a mapping of an identifier to an encrypteddata entry. For example, the first identifier 906A may be mapped to thefirst encrypted data entry 908A and the second identifier 906B may bemapped to a second encrypted data entry 908B. The mapping may be done invarious ways, such as by using a data type, a data structure, and thelike. For example, a C-style data structure, associative array (i.e.,map), linked list, or various combinations thereof may be used toimplement the mapping between an identifier and an encrypted data entry.In some embodiments, the identifiers are locally unique (e.g., eachidentifier is used by at most one device of a cluster) or globallyunique (e.g., each identifier is unique such that one device and anotherdevice will not have the same identifier). An encrypted data entry mayinclude one or more encrypted partitions. An encrypted data entry, whendecrypted, may encode cryptographic material such as cryptographic keys,digital certificates, and more. For example, the first encrypted dataentry 908A shown in FIG. 9 includes two partitions 910A and 910B. Insome embodiments, the partitions of a data entry are a fixed size. Insome embodiments, the partitions of all data entries in a clustermanifest are of a same fixed size. The device may be anetwork-attachable data transfer device in accordance with thosedescribed elsewhere in this disclosure.

The device associated with an identifier corresponding to an encrypteddata entry may be able to use the encrypted data entry to perform anauthentication process and/or obtain data. For example, consider thefirst encrypted data entry 908A shown in FIG. 9—in an embodiment, adevice associated with the first identifier 906A may read the firstencrypted data entry 908A and parse the encrypted data entry 908A intotwo partitions 910A and 910B. A first security module of the device maybe used to decrypt the first partition 910A and a second security moduleof the device may be used to decrypt the second partition 910B. Thesecurity modules may be configured such that cryptographic operationswill fail if the device has been tampered with. As a result,successfully decrypting both partitions 910A and 910B may be used toauthenticate that the first security module and the second securitymodule described in the above example are valid and that no tamperinghas occurred. In some embodiments, authenticated encryption may isemployed such that each encrypted partition has a correspondingauthentication tag.

When each partition of an encrypted data entry is decrypted, thedecrypted partitions may be used to assemble cryptographic material suchas a cryptographic key. The cryptographic key may be assembled byconcatenating the decrypted partitions together. In some embodiments theorder and/or manner in which the decrypted partitions are to be combinedconform to a predetermined format (e.g., concatenated in the same orderin which the encrypted partitions are ordered), in other embodiments thepartitions encodes information that is used to determine how to combinethe decrypted partitions (e.g., the first byte of each decryptedpartition indicates an ordering), and so on. Of course, it iscontemplated that the decrypted partitions may be combined in anysuitable manner to encode an output (e.g., cryptographic material suchas a cryptographic key).

In some embodiments, encrypted data entries have a different number ofpartitions and/or the sizes of partitions are different. For example, inFIG. 9, the first encrypted data entry 908A has two partitions, thesecond encrypted data entry 908B has three partitions, and the thirdencrypted data entry 908C has a single partition. In some embodiments,two or more security modules are needed in concert (i.e., used inconjunction with each other) to obtain the cryptographic materialencoded in an encrypted data entry and/or partition. As an example,consider the third encrypted data entry 908C which is double-encrypted(i.e., a data input is encrypted a first time and the output of thefirst encryption is used as the input to a second encryption)—as part ofobtaining the encoded cryptographic material pk₃, the device associatedwith the identifier 906C associated with the encrypted data entry 908Cmay perform a first decryption on the double-encrypted ciphertext usinga first security module to obtain a first output (i.e., asingle-encrypted ciphertext in this example) and then perform a seconddecryption on the single-encrypted ciphertext using a second securitymodule to obtain, as the second output, the encoded cryptographicmaterial.

The cluster manifest may include a list of encrypted payloads.Cryptographic material obtained from an encrypted data entry may be usedto decrypt, authenticate, or perform other cryptographic operations inconjunction with a corresponding encrypted payload. Each encryptedpayload may be encrypted under a different cryptographic key (e.g., acryptographic key obtained from the corresponding encrypted data entry)and may be decryptable by a particular device of the cluster. Forexample, the first encrypted payload 904A shown in FIG. 9 may bedecryptable by a first device of the cluster that obtains acryptographic key from a corresponding encrypted data entry 908A and thesecond encrypted payload 904B shown in FIG. 9 may be decryptable by asecond (i.e., different) device of the cluster that obtains acryptographic key from a corresponding encrypted data entry 908B. Anencrypted payload may include various types of data, such as executablecode, cryptographic material (e.g., cryptographic keys, digitalcertificates), data, and the like. In some embodiments, an encryptedpayload includes a cryptographic key that is used by anetwork-attachable data transfer device (such as those described abovein connection with FIG. 2) to perform various operations. Anetwork-attachable data transfer device may be unlocked when it obtainsthe cryptographic key included in the payload.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example environment 1000 in which a degradedcluster 1004 issues, and a receiving computing resource service providerprocesses, a request 1016 to provision a replacement data transferdevice 1026, in accordance with some embodiments.

To decrease the amount of time a cluster operates in a degraded state,an entity of a cluster, such as any device of the cluster 1004 and/orone of the components associated therewith (e.g., a display device ofone of the cluster devices 1006, 1008, 1010) issues a replacementrequest 1016 via network 1018 to the computing resource service provider1002 in response to determining the cluster's degraded state. Forexample, a healthy data transfer device 1006, 1008 that successfullyauthenticates with and connects to the data storage of an unhealthy datatransfer device 1010, generates information 1020 regarding the unhealthydata transfer device 1010, directly or indirectly, to the computingresource service provider 1002 that provisioned it (along with the otherdevices in the cluster). In some embodiments, a display deviceassociated with the unhealthy data transfer device 1010 submits theinformation 1020 upon determining that the data transfer device 1010 isin a non-nominal operational mode. The information may include, forexample, a device identifier of the device, cryptographic informationassociated with the device (e.g., a public key associated with a privatekey held by the security module 1014 of the device 1010, or informationassociated with a shared secret associated with the device 1010), acluster identifier, component identifiers for one or more of thecomponents of the device 1010 (e.g., data storage identifiers), and thelike.

In some embodiments, the computing resource service provider receivesinformation regarding the health, performance, and/or functionality ofsome or all of the devices of a cluster, and based on this information,may determine that a replacement request is necessary. In suchembodiments, the computing resource service provider may provide anindication of this determination to one or more devices of the cluster,so as to cause an available (e.g., healthy) device thereof to submit thereplacement request 1016. In some embodiments, the computing resourceservice provider 1002 makes the determination and internally generatesthe replacement request 1016 without further intervention from thecluster 1004.

The computing resource service provider uses the information toprovision 1024 a replacement data transfer device 1026 with aconfiguration 1022 that causes the device to perform a series of datarecovery and cluster integration steps when joining the cluster 1004.The replacement device 1026 may be configured with, for example,cryptographic material, stored in an entity of the computing resourceservice provider, specific to the degraded device 1010, and reallocatedto the replacement device 1026. As another example, a public keyassociated with the information 1022 and/or the degraded device is inturn associated with the replacement device, e.g., using the information1022. Such information 1022 may be associated with one or more securitymodules 1028 of the replacement device 1026.

The information 1022 may be used, directly or indirectly, by thereplacement device 1026 upon attempting to join the cluster 1004, todecrypt an encrypted payload specific to the degraded device 1010. Insome embodiments, the encrypted payload may be updated, either by thecluster 1004 or the computing resource service provider 1002, to includeexecutable instructions that cause the replacement device 1026 toperform additional data recovery actions with regard to the datarepresented on the cluster (e.g., as shards 1012 a, 1012 b, 1012 c)and/or the portion thereof as stored on the degraded device to bereplaced, as discussed in further detail below in connection with FIGS.11-13. Furthermore, in some embodiments, the cluster manifest containingthe encrypted payload may be updated to reflect an identifier of thereplacement device 1026 (in cases where the cluster manifest previouslyreflected an identifier of the replaced degraded device 1010), as wellas to include information regarding one or more components of thereplacement device 1026, such as data storage device identifiers,network interface media access control addresses, and the like.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example environment 1100 in which a replacementdevice 1108 is integrated into a previously degraded cluster 1102 byperforming data recovery actions, including copying data from a degradeddevice 1112 formerly part of the cluster, in accordance with someembodiments.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned data recovery processes are, asmentioned, encoded in a cluster manifest payload and are performed inconnection with joining the cluster to restore the data stored on anoutgoing degraded device 1112 to the replacement device 1108 and, ifapplicable, redistribute data stored on the various devices of thecluster while it was operating in a degraded fashion. In someembodiments, the data recovery process(es) are initiated manually, e.g.,via a command or in response to a prompt or other inquiry provided to,e.g., a display device, a client device, etc.

In the illustrated example, a replacement data transfer device 1108 isconnected, via its external data interface, to an external datainterface of the degraded device 1112 it replaces, according totechniques previously mentioned. As part of the cluster joining process,the replacement device 1108 first attempts to verify the integrityand/or availability of data stored on the degraded transfer device 1112,and, in some embodiments, checks one or more performance and/oroperational parameters of the degraded transfer device 112 to determinewhether it is reliable enough to copy all data stored thereon. If thedegraded data transfer device 1112 is sufficiently capable, thereplacement device 1108 copies the stored data (e.g., redundancy codedshard 1110 c) from the data storage of the degraded device 1112 to itsown data storage, terminates the external data interface connection withthe degraded data transfer device 1112, and in so doing, restores thecluster to normal operation (e.g., all three shards 1110 a, 1110 b, 1110c of a set are available on respective devices 1104, 1106, 1108, andaccess thereto is otherwise unrestricted by operational issues).

FIG. 12 illustrates an example environment 1200 in which a cluster 1202regenerates data originally associated with a malfunctioning datatransfer device 1216 as part of provisioning a functional replacementdata transfer device 1208, in accordance with some embodiments.

Further to FIG. 11, as illustrated in FIG. 12, if the data on thedegraded data transfer device 1214, or the device itself, is notsufficiently reliable or available for access 1216 for a period of timeneeded to finish copying it, the data 1212 is regenerated from shards1210 a, 1210 b stored on the other devices 1204, 1206 of the cluster1202. In the illustrated example, the shards 1210 a, 1210 b, 1210 ccomprise a set of shards representing a data object after having beengenerated using a redundancy coding scheme, where any two of the threeshards are sufficient to regenerate the data 1212. Accordingly, in theillustrated example, only shards 1210 a and 1210 b are needed toregenerate data 1212.

The data 1212 is then reprocessed using the redundancy coding schemepreviously used to generate the original shards 1210 a, 1210 b, 1210 c.In some embodiments, only the desired shard—e.g., the shard 1210 coriginally associated with the degraded device—is generated. In someembodiments, the full set of shards is regenerated, and the shards otherthan the desired shard 1210 c are discarded. In some embodiments, theoriginal data 1212 is regenerated from, e.g., 1210 a and 1210 b, andsome or all of the shards (e.g., 1210 a, 1210 b, 1210 c) are generatedtherefrom (e.g., only the shard 1210 c, or all three shards 1210 a, 1210b, 1210 c). In some embodiments, the shard 1210 c is generated directlyfrom one or more of the shards 1210 a, 1210 b, e.g., without firstgenerating the original data 1212. After regeneration, the shard 1210 cis stored on the replacement device 1208, and the cluster 1202 beingsnormal operation.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example environment 1300 in which a cluster 1302load balances data stored on the cluster during a period of degradedoperation, in accordance with some embodiments.

Further to FIGS. 11 and 12, any data stored on the cluster while it wasoperating in a degraded operational mode may be subject to partial orcomplete redistribution, including, at least in part, to a replacementdevice. In the illustrated example, the cluster 1302 includes three datatransfer devices 1304, 1306, 1308, where the replacement device isdevice 1308. As illustrated, before degraded operation of the cluster1302, a set of three shards 1310 a, 1310 b, 1310 c, generated using afirst redundancy coding scheme accounting for three functional devices,were stored. During the degraded operation of the cluster 1302, two setsof two shards, 1310 d, 1310 e and 1310 f, 1310 g, respectively, werestored on devices 1304 and 1306, according to a second redundancy codingscheme accounting for only those two devices being functional.

Upon integration of the replacement device 1308, the shard 1310 c iscopied to or regenerated (from shards 1310 a and 1310 b) andsubsequently stored on the replacement device 1308 according totechniques mentioned in connection with FIGS. 11 and 12 above. As may becontemplated, this leaves three shards 1310 a, 1310 d, 1310 f on device1304, three shards 1310 b, 1310 e, 1310 g on device 1306, and only oneshard 1310 c on device 1308. To even out access load and/or storagespace availability on the devices of the cluster 1302, one or moreshards may be reallocated to the replacement device 1308, such as shard1310 g from device 1306. The initiation and/or priority with which thisload balancing reallocation occurs may be performed in connection withone or more performance metrics and/or operational parameters aspreviously discussed. Additionally, in some embodiments, the specificshard(s) moved may be selected according to not just storage spaceand/or system load considerations, but any performance requirementsand/or operational parameters as previously discussed. Accordingly, aload balancing strategy to optimize or account for one requirement orparameter may intentionally appear to unbalance potential load accordingto a different requirement or parameter.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example process 1400 for initiating a clusterremediation routine upon detecting abnormal operation of a device of thecluster, in accordance with some embodiments.

At step 1402, an entity, such a component (e.g., a display device) ofone or more data transfer devices of a cluster implementing the processand/or a computing resource service provider, detects or otherwisedetermines that a network-attachable data transfer device of the clusteris an abnormal or otherwise non-nominal operational state. For example,the determination may be made directly (e.g., by directly monitoringand/or polling the various devices to determine whether and how they areoperational), indirectly (e.g., as a result of detecting that anexternal device has successfully connected through an external datainterface to take control of the degraded device's data storage), orsome combination thereof.

At step 1404, the entity, or some other associated entity (which may bedifferent than the component detecting the abnormal operation in step1402), issues a diagnostic command to a device associated with theabnormally operating data transfer device. For example, the diagnosticcommand may cause a display device of the operating data transfer deviceto display diagnostic information, further instructions to a human userto perform specific tasks (e.g., instructing the user to physicallyconnect a data and/or power cable between an external data interfacethereof and a different, healthy data transfer device in the cluster).

At step 1406, in connection with the command of step 1404 (eitherdirectly or indirectly), a component, such as the device receiving thediagnostic command or, in some embodiments, the switching device itself,causes the switching device to connect the data storage of the degradeddata transfer device to the external data interface. As describedelsewhere herein, any external device connecting to the external datainterface may be subject to authentication prior to being affordedpartial or full access to the data storage. Also as described elsewhereherein, the switching device may perform the connection upon detectingan attempt by an external device to connect thereto, withoutintervention from a different component (e.g., display device).

At step 1408, a component associated with one of the devices of thecluster submits a request, such as over a network (e.g., the Internet),to the computing resource service provider to requisition and/orprovision a replacement for the abnormally operating data transferdevice. This request may be made automatically upon completion of one ormore of steps 1402-1406, or manually in connection with detecting anexternal action (e.g., a user input authorizing and/or directing theprovisioning request for the replacement device). As mentioned elsewhereherein, the component may be the same component as or a differentcomponent than that which issues the diagnostic command in step 1404,detects the abnormal operation at step 1402, and/or causes the switchingdevice to connect the data storage device at step 1406. For example, insome embodiments, the display device issues the request on behalf of theabnormal device into which it is integrated. In some embodiments, adifferent, healthy device of the cluster sends the request. In someembodiments, the abnormal device itself submits the request via itsnetwork interface.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example process 1500 for utilizing a switchingdevice to activate an external data interface of a data transfer device,such as for cluster remediation purposes, in accordance with someembodiments.

At step 1502, a component of a data transfer device, such as a switchingdevice as described elsewhere herein, receives a command or makes adetermination to activate an external data interface so as to allow foraccess, by a connecting external entity, to data storage of the datatransfer device. The command and/or determination may be performedaccording to, e.g., process 1400 described above.

At step 1504, the component receiving the command or making thedetermination in step 1502 further determines whether to modify and/ordeactivate the internal data interface of the host into which it isintegrated. The determination may be made in connection with one or moreconfigurations of the implementing host, as well as the nature of thecommand/determination of step 1502. For example, if thecommand/determination of 1502 indicates that access to other components,such as the internal data interface, is warranted (e.g., for diagnosticpurposes), the switching device may determine to leave the internal datainterface connected, thereby allowing access to such components via theexternal data interface. As another example, the switching datainterface may determine that the internal data interface or othercomponents than the data storage need not remain active, and maydetermine to disable them. As yet another example, the switching datainterface may determine to provide partial or conditional access to suchcomponents.

At step 1506, the modification and/or determination made in step 1504 isexecuted by, e.g., the switching device, and at step 1508, the switchingdevice connects the data storage to the external data interface. Aspreviously mentioned elsewhere, further access to, e.g., the datastorage via the external data interface, may, in some cases, beconditional upon proper authentication of the connecting entity by thedevice implementing the switching device. To the extent that step 1508is successful, optionally, at step 1510, one or more indications orother information related to the status of the external data interfaceis provided to, e.g., a diagnosing client device or user via aprogrammatic response to a command that initiated the command at step1502, a display device of the device implementing the switching device,etc.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example workflow 1600 for controlling access toan activated external data interface of a data storage device, inaccordance with some embodiments.

At step 1602, an entity, such as a switching device as describedelsewhere herein, detects an attempted connection to the external datainterface, also described in detail elsewhere herein. The detection maybe physical (e.g., using sensors to determine whether a physical orelectrical connection is being made) and/or determinative (e.g.,receiving a connection request via the external data interface for,e.g., data storage connected thereto via the switching device).

At step 1604, the external data interface receives authenticationinformation, such as certificates, tokens, cryptographic keys and/orother material, from the externally connecting entity, either inparallel with the attempted connection (e.g., part of the initialconnection request) and/or separately therefrom (e.g., in response to anauthentication challenge by a device on the “safe” side of the externaldata interface, such as the switching device).

At step 1606, the authentication information received in step 1604 isvalidated, such as by the switching device (e.g., using a connected orintegrated security module), to determine whether the authenticationinformation correlates with further authentication informationassociated with the external data interface, such as for the datatransfer device and/or data storage to which the connection is intended.As mentioned, the validation may involve confirmation of correctlymatching shared secrets, cryptographic verification of a data object(e.g., ciphertext encrypted using a public key, where the private key isheld by a security device of the authenticating entity), and the like.

At decision point 1608, to the extent that the authenticationinformation cannot be validated, access to the data storage device viathe external data interface is denied at step 1610. However, if theauthentication information is validated, at step 1612, the switchingdevice activates the link between the data storage and the external datainterface so as to provide access to the data storage by the connectingentity.

At step 1614, the connecting entity, which may be a different, healthydata transfer device of a cluster, negotiates a connection with the nowaccessible data storage of, e.g., the degraded data transfer device, soas to cause the data storage to appear locally relative to theconnecting data transfer device (e.g., addressed at the same or similarlevel, or using a similar or same protocol, as the connecting datatransfer device uses for its own data storage). At step 1616, with thedata storage now accessible to the cluster via the “surrogate” or “host”device via the external data interface(s), the cluster is updated toreflect that the data storage is available. As the data storage waspreviously known to the cluster by virtue of having been associated withthe now degraded data transfer device, the extent to which the clusteris updated may, for example, involve restrictions on access (e.g., readand/or write access), preferential avoidance of the device when othersare available, and the like. Such an update may be performed byupdating, e.g., a cluster manifest and/or cluster operational metadata,as described elsewhere herein.

FIG. 17 illustrates an example workflow 1700 for responding to retrievalrequests by a degraded cluster where a malfunctioning data transferdevice is configured for at least partial access via an external datainterface, in accordance with some embodiments.

At step 1702, a degraded cluster receives, via one of the devices in thecluster, a read request for data stored or otherwise represented on thecluster. As previously mentioned, the data may be redundancy coded intoshards, a subset of which can be used to regenerate the entirety of thedata. The cluster, for purposes of this example workflow 1700, includesat least one healthy data transfer device to which a degraded datatransfer device has been connected so as to allow the healthy datatransfer device access to its data storage, in accordance withtechniques described elsewhere throughout this disclosure. The datarequest may, for example, be a programmatic or graphicalinterface-initiated request of a client device connected to the clusterto retrieve the data.

At step 1704, the cluster device (e.g., the one receiving the request)determines whether the degraded device's data storage includes a datacomponent (e.g., shard) associated with the requested data. At decisionpoint 1706, to the extent that the data component exists on the degradeddevice's data storage, at step 1710, the cluster device determines,either by active testing thereof, or by passively relying on thedegraded device's own determination, whether the degraded device hassufficient functionality to retrieve the data component (e.g., reliablefor the length of time needed for the device to produce the component inits entirety and without errors). If at decision point 1712 the degradeddevice's data storage is determined to be sufficiently functional toprovide the data component, at step 1714, the cluster device determineswhether one or more operational parameters and/or performancerequirements associated with the retrieval warrant the use of the datastorage of the degraded device in performing the retrieval. Aspreviously mentioned, there may, in some embodiments, be one or morerestrictions or biases imposed by the cluster on the use of the datastorage, such as a level of bias toward using other devices than thedata storage unless one or more of the operational parameters and/or theperformance requirements dictate it.

At decision point 1716, if the use of the data storage of the degradeddevice is warranted for servicing the retrieval, at step 1718, the datacomponent is retrieved from the degraded device so as to generate and/orprovide the requested data to the requestor at step 1720. However, if,at any of decision points 1706, 1712, and 1716, the determination is inthe negative, at step 1708, the degraded device and data storage thereofis omitted, and data components are retrieved from the other devices ofthe cluster and, subsequently, provided to the requestor at step 1720.

FIG. 18 illustrates an example workflow 1800 for responding to datawrite requests by a degraded cluster having a malfunctioning datatransfer device, in accordance with some embodiments.

At step 1802, a degraded cluster receives, via one of the devices in thecluster, a write request for data to be stored or otherwise representedon the cluster. As previously mentioned, in nominal operation, the datamay be redundancy coded using a first redundancy coding scheme (whichmay take into account a nominal quantity of functional devices in thecluster) into shards, a subset of which can be used to regenerate theentirety of the data. The cluster, for purposes of this example workflow1800, includes at least one healthy data transfer device to which adegraded data transfer device has been connected so as to allow thehealthy data transfer device access to its data storage, in accordancewith techniques described elsewhere throughout this disclosure. The datarequest may, for example, be a programmatic or graphicalinterface-initiated request of a client device connected to the clusterto store the data.

At step 1804, the cluster device determines whether one or moreoperational parameters and/or performance requirements associated withthe storage request and/or the devices of the cluster warrant the use ofthe data storage of the degraded device in performing the storageoperation. As previously mentioned, there may, in some embodiments, beone or more restrictions or biases imposed by the cluster on the use ofthe data storage, such as a level of bias toward using other devicesthan the data storage unless one or more of the operational parametersand/or the performance requirements dictate it.

At decision point 1806, if the use of the data storage of the degradeddevice is warranted for servicing the request, at step 1810, the clusterdevice determines, either by active testing thereof, or by passivelyrelying on the degraded device's own determination, whether the degradeddevice has sufficient functionality to reliably store the data component(e.g., reliable for the length of time needed for the device to storethe component in its entirety and without errors over an expectedlifetime of the data object, or at least until the device can bereplaced with a fully functional one). If at decision point 1812 thedegraded device's data storage is determined to be sufficientlyfunctional to store the data component, at step 1816, the data isencoded according to the first redundancy coding scheme (the scheme usedas if all devices of the cluster were operating normally) to generate aseries of shard to represent the data, and at step 1818, such shards arestored on the devices of the cluster, including on the data storage ofthe degraded data transfer device. Then, at step 1822, status and/orconfirmation of the successful (or unsuccessful) execution of the writerequest is provided to the requestor.

However, if the determinations at decision points either 1806 or 1812are in the negative, at step 1808, one or more of the cluster devicesdetermines a different redundancy coding scheme that takes into accountone or more of the performance requirements and/or operationalparameters associated with the data, the request, and/or the devices ofthe cluster. For example, the cluster may determine the redundancycoding scheme based at least in part on the unavailability of the datastorage of the degraded device, and therefore encode a number of shardscorresponding to the number of healthy devices remaining in the clusterand, in some cases, leave the failure margin associated with theoriginal redundancy coding scheme intact (e.g., if the originalredundancy coding scheme encoded five shards, of which three weresufficient to recover all of the data, the updated redundancy codingscheme may encode four shards of which two are sufficient to recover allof the data).

At step 1814, one or more of the cluster devices encodes the datarequested for storage with the determined redundancy coding scheme ofstep 1808, and the resultant data components are stored on the devicesof the cluster, but omitting the degrading device. At step 1822, statusof the write request, as well as, in some cases, undated informationrelated to the encoding and/or durability/availability informationassociated therewith, is provided to the requestor.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example process 1900 for provisioning andconfiguring a replacement data transfer device for a degraded cluster,in accordance with some embodiments.

At step 1902, an entity, such as a healthy data transfer device of acluster, receives an indication that a data transfer device of thecluster is degraded in some way (e.g., partially or entirelynonoperational). In some embodiments, the entity may be a process orcomponent monitoring the unhealthy device, such as a process orcomponent implemented by a computing resource service provider, or thatof the unhealthy device itself.

At step 1904, the degraded device is identified, such as using one ormore identifiers or other metadata associated with the degraded deviceor one or more of the components thereof (e.g., a security module ordata storage associated therewith), and at step 1906, the submittingcluster device generates and submits, to the computing resource serviceprovider a provisioning request for a replacement device using and/orincluding this identification information. The request may, aspreviously mentioned, be automated or manually initiated, depending onspecific implementation.

At step 1908, the computing resource service provider determinescryptographic information with which to configure the replacementdevice, based at least in part on the received identificationinformation. For example, the computing resource service provider maygenerate new cryptographic information using the received identificationinformation, where the new cryptographic information is capable of beingused in lieu of the cryptographic information of the device beingreplaced without updating other cryptographic information associatedwith other devices of the cluster. As another example, the computingresource service provider may keep a record of the cryptographicinformation assigned to each device of the cluster, and when a givendevice is to be replaced, based at least in part on the receivedinformation, the computing resource provider may reprovision thecryptographic information from the old device to the replacement device.

At step 1910, the computing resource service provider configures thereplacement device with the cryptographic information determined in step1908, such as by configuring, updating, installing, or replacing one ormore security modules associated with the replacement device.Furthermore, at step 1912, the computing resource service providerupdates records, such as internal records indexing the cryptographicinformation, cluster manifest(s) or portions thereof (such as executablepayloads associated with the old device), and the like, to reflect thereplacement device as being associated with the cryptographicconfiguration. As previously mentioned elsewhere herein, the variousrecords, such as the cluster manifest, may be propagated directly by thecomputing resource service provider to the cluster, such as through anetwork, and/or stored on the replacement device, which, whenprovisioned by the cluster, causes propagation thereof to the otherdevices of the cluster, thereby updating those devices with the updatedinformation.

At step 1914, the replacement device is provided by the computingresource service provider to the cluster for further provision accordingto techniques discussed elsewhere herein. For example, the computingresource service provider may physically ship the replacement device tothe customer premises for integration into the cluster, where theconfiguration just mentioned partially or entirely automates theintegration and/or data recovery process(es) associated with replacingthe degraded the device.

FIG. 20 illustrates an example workflow 2000 for interaction between anunlocked cluster device 2002 and a locked cluster device 2004, inaccordance with some embodiments. The cluster devices may be those inaccordance with embodiments described elsewhere in the disclosure. Anunlocked cluster device 2002 such as those described in accordance withembodiments described elsewhere herein may detect 2006 that anotherdevice of the cluster is in a locked state. The detection may occurthrough a periodic polling mechanism, through detecting that an ongoingcommunication session between the devices has been interrupted, or anyother suitable manner. As a result of detecting the cluster device islocked, the unlocked cluster device 2002 may provide 2008 an unlockedcluster manifest to the locked cluster device 2004. In some embodiments,the cluster manifest is retained by the unlocked cluster device 2002 involatile memory such as RAM which may be erased or lost if the deviceloses power. In some embodiments, the unlocked cluster manifest isprovided to the unlocked cluster device 2002 by a computing resourceservice provider provisioning the locked cluster device 2004 (e.g., as areplacement cluster device), and the cluster manifest may be updatedaccording to the purpose of the locked cluster device 2004 (e.g., as areplacement for a different cluster device of the cluster). The manifestmay be provided to the locked cluster device 2004 in any suitablemanner, including transmission across a network.

The locked cluster device 2004 may receive 2010 the unlocked clustermanifest and perform one or more steps in connection with unlocking thedevice and/or authenticating the device. These steps may be performed inaccordance with techniques described in connection with other figures ofthis disclosure. For example, the locked cluster device may obtain, fromthe cluster manifest, encrypted data that, when decrypted 2012, encodescryptographic material such as a cryptographic key. The encrypted datamay have one or more partitions such that each partition is decryptableusing a security module of the locked cluster device 2004. The systemmay decrypt the partitions and assemble a cryptographic key usingtechniques described elsewhere herein. In some embodiments, anauthenticated encryption mode is used such that the decryption includesperforming an authentication using a ciphertext and authentication tag,which may be supplied via a partition.

The system may verify 2014 the security modules are valid and secured,for example, by checking that the security modules are each operable toperform cryptographic operations. It should be noted that verificationthat the security modules are valid and secured does not necessarilyimply that the cryptographic operations complete without error. Forexample, in a case where authenticated encryption is used and adecryption operation supplies an input ciphertext and an authenticationtag that does not match the input ciphertext, an error may bereturned—such an error may indicate that the security module is securedand operating correctly because the security module was able to performcryptographic operations in making the determination that the ciphertextand tag do not match, thereby returning an error.

In some embodiments, a cryptographic key is assembled 2016 from thedecrypted partitions of the encrypted data. The cryptographic key may beassembled as described elsewhere herein. The system may then decrypt2018 an encrypted payload, such as an encrypted payload included in themanifest that is associated with the particular device, and may use atleast part of the decrypted payload to establish 2020 acryptographically protected communication session with the unlockedcluster device 2002. The establishing of the session may be a part ofthe process for the locked cluster device to re-join the cluster. Insome embodiments, communication sessions is established with otherdevices of the cluster in place of and/or in addition to anycommunication sessions established with the unlocked cluster device2002. As previously mentioned, the payload may be executed to performvarious actions, such as those related to data recovery, as described infurther detail elsewhere herein.

FIG. 21 illustrates an example workflow 2100 for initializing areplacement cluster device, in accordance with some embodiments.

At step 2102, a degraded data transfer device associated with, butdisconnected from, a cluster in favor of a replacement deviceprovisioned by a computing resource service provider according totechniques discussed elsewhere herein, detects a connection by thereplacement device with its external data interface. At step 2104, thereplacement device attempts to authenticate with the degraded device,and at decision point 2106, if the authentication is unsuccessful, atstep 2108, the replacement device integrates into the cluster as a newdevice, rather than attempting to determine and/or restore data storedon the degraded device. As may be contemplated, in some embodiments,other processes of the cluster (e.g., of other cluster devices), mayattempt to regenerate and/or move data onto the new device (e.g., atsteps 2114, 2118, and 2112, described below), rather than leaving thenew cluster device substantially empty for new data to the cluster. Thenat step 2120, the cluster records, such as the cluster manifest and/orother cluster metadata, are updated by a device of the cluster toreflect the addition of the new device.

However, if at decision point 2106, the authentication is successful,the replacement (host) device determines, either directly or indirectly,whether the degraded device is sufficiently functional to retrieveand/or provide the data stored thereon. If at decision point 2112 thedegraded device is determined to be sufficiently functional, the datacomponents stored on the data storage of the degraded device are copiedfrom the degraded device to the data storage of the replacement deviceat step 2116, and the cluster records are updated at step 2120 aspreviously described.

If, at decision point 2112, the degraded device is not determined to befunctional enough to reliably provide the data, at step 2114, the otherdevices of the cluster regenerate the original data associated with thedata components stored thereon, then at step 2118, the data componentsassociated with the degraded are regenerated from the data generated instep 2114. At step 2122, these data components are stored on thereplacement device, and at step 2120, the cluster records are updated.

FIG. 22 illustrates an example process 2200 for load balancing datastored during degraded operation of a cluster using at least areplacement device integrated into the cluster, in accordance with someembodiments.

At step 2202, a device of a cluster, such as a healthy data transferdevice or a degraded (unhealthy) data transfer device, determines, e.g.,in connection with integration of a replacement device for the unhealthydevice to the cluster, whether data components were written to thecluster during a period of time in which the cluster was degraded (e.g.,as a result of one or more of the data transfer devices beingunhealthy). At step 2204, those data components are identified andfurther processed by the data transfer device to determine a subset thatwas omitted from storage on the degraded device (e.g., having beengenerated using a temporary, different redundancy coding scheme so as togenerate fewer shards on account of the degraded device being marked asincapable of storing data or preferentially avoided for furtherstorage).

At step 2206, the device assesses one or more performance requirementsand/or operational parameters associated with the data components, thecluster, and/or the device(s) themselves, so as to determine at step2208 a subset of the data components identified in step 2204 to berelocated from a healthy device of the cluster to the replacementdevice, so as to balance load or other considerations in light of theassessed performance requirements and/or operational parameters. At step2210, the data components determined in step 2208 are then moved fromtheir source device to the replacement device.

FIG. 23 illustrates an example environment 2300 where a redundancyencoding technique or scheme is applied to data stored in durablestorage, in accordance with some embodiments. Redundancy coding schemesmay involve, as previously mentioned, erasure coding techniques thatgenerate a series of encoded (derived) shards, bundle encodingtechniques that generate a set of shards, some of which includeunaltered data (data shards or identity shards) along with derivedshards, and grid encoding techniques. The redundancy encoding techniqueillustrated in FIG. 23 is an example of a grid encoding techniquewherein each identity shard is part of a first set of one or moreidentity shards which may be bundled with one or more derived shards ina first group or bundle (i.e., in one dimension or direction) and eachidentity shard is also part of at least a second set of one or moreidentity shards which may be bundled with one or more other derivedshards in a second bundle or group (i.e., in a second dimension ordirection). As is illustrated in FIG. 23, a grid encoding technique isoften implemented as a two-dimensional grid, with each shard being partof two bundles (i.e., both “horizontal” and “vertical” bundles).However, a grid encoding technique may also be implemented as athree-dimensional grid, with each shard being part of three bundles, ora four-dimensional grid, with each shard being part of four bundles, oras a larger-dimensional grid. Additional details of grid encodingtechniques are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/789,783,filed Jul. 1, 2015, entitled “GRID ENCODED DATA STORAGE SYSTEMS FOREFFICIENT DATA REPAIR” (Attorney Docket No. 0097749-481US0), which isincorporated by reference herein.

In the example illustrated in FIG. 23, data 2302 from preliminarystorage is provided for storage in durable storage using a redundancyencoding technique with both horizontal derived shards and verticalderived shards. In the example illustrated in FIG. 23, a first storageentity 2312 may contain data shards (denoted as a square shard with theletter “I”), horizontal derived shards (denoted as a triangular shardwith the Greek letter “6” or delta), and vertical derived shards(denoted as an inverted triangle with the Greek letter “6”) all of whichmay be stored on durable storage volumes within the first storage entity2312. A second storage entity 2314, which may begeographically/physically and/or logically separate from the firststorage entity 2312, may also contain data shards, horizontal derivedshards, and/or vertical derived shards. A third storage entity 2316,which may be geographically/physically and/or logically separate fromthe first storage entity 2312 and from the second storage entity 2314,may also contain data shards, horizontal derived shards, and/or verticalderived shards. As illustrated in FIG. 23, each of the three storageentities may be a single vertical bundle. In an embodiment, each of thestorage entities can include multiple vertical bundles. As may becontemplated, the number of storage entities illustrated in FIG. 23and/or the composition of the storage entities illustrated in FIG. 23are merely illustrative examples and other numbers and/or compositionsof datacenters may be considered as within the scope of the presentdisclosure. The storage entities may be co-located or may be located inone or more separate physical locations.

In the example illustrated in FIG. 23, the data 2302 may be copied to adata shard 2304 and, as a result of the change to the data in the datashard 2304, a horizontal derived shard 2306 associated with the datashard 2304 may be updated so that the horizontal derived shard 2306 maybe used to reconstruct the data shard 2304 in the event of a loss of thedata shard 2304. In the example illustrated in FIG. 23, the three shardsenclosed by the dotted line (e.g., the data shard 2304, the data shard2320, and the horizontal derived shard 2306) are a horizontal bundle2318. In this example, the data shard 2320 is not affected by thechanges to the data shard 2304 but the horizontal derived shard 2306 mayneed to be updated as a result of the changes to the data shard 2304.

Also as a result of the change to the data in the data shard 2304, oneor more vertical derived shards 2308 related to the data shard 2304 mayalso be updated so that the vertical derived shards 2308 may be used toreconstruct the data shard 2304 in the event of a loss of the data shard2304 and the horizontal derived shard 2306. In the example illustratedin FIG. 23, the shards in storage entity 2312 form a vertical bundle. Inthis example, the other data shards 2322 in the vertical bundle and/orthe horizontal derived shards 2324 in the vertical bundle are notaffected by the changes to the data shard 2304 but the vertical derivedshards 2308 may need to be updated as a result of the changes to thedata shard 2304. Finally, as a result of the change to the horizontalderived shard 2306, one or more vertical derived shards 2310 related tothe horizontal derived shard 2306 in the vertical bundle in storageentity 2316 may also be updated so that the vertical derived shards 2310may be used to reconstruct the horizontal derived shard 2306 in theevent of a loss of the horizontal derived shard 2306 and the data shard2304.

FIG. 24 illustrates aspects of an example environment 2400 forimplementing aspects in accordance with various embodiments. As will beappreciated, although a web-based environment is used for purposes ofexplanation, different environments may be used, as appropriate, toimplement various embodiments. The environment includes an electronicclient device 2402, which can include any appropriate device operable tosend and/or receive requests, messages, or information over anappropriate network 2404 and, in some embodiments, convey informationback to a user of the device. Examples of such client devices includepersonal computers, cell phones, handheld messaging devices, laptopcomputers, tablet computers, set-top boxes, personal data assistants,embedded computer systems, electronic book readers, and the like. Thenetwork can include any appropriate network, including an intranet, theInternet, a cellular network, a local area network, a satellite networkor any other such network and/or combination thereof. Components usedfor such a system can depend at least in part upon the type of networkand/or environment selected. Many protocols and components forcommunicating via such a network are well known and will not bediscussed herein in detail. Communication over the network can beenabled by wired or wireless connections and combinations thereof. Inthis example, the network includes the Internet and/or otherpublicly-addressable communications network, as the environment includesa web server 2406 for receiving requests and serving content in responsethereto, although for other networks an alternative device serving asimilar purpose could be used as would be apparent to one of ordinaryskill in the art.

The illustrative environment includes at least one application server2408 and a data store 2410. It should be understood that there can beseveral application servers, layers or other elements, processes orcomponents, which may be chained or otherwise configured, which caninteract to perform tasks such as obtaining data from an appropriatedata store. Servers, as used herein, may be implemented in various ways,such as hardware devices or virtual computer systems. In some contexts,servers may refer to a programming module being executed on a computersystem. As used herein, unless otherwise stated or clear from context,the term “data store” refers to any device or combination of devicescapable of storing, accessing and retrieving data, which may include anycombination and number of data servers, databases, data storage devicesand data storage media, in any standard, distributed, virtual orclustered environment. The application server can include anyappropriate hardware, software and firmware for integrating with thedata store as needed to execute aspects of one or more applications forthe client device, handling some or all of the data access and businesslogic for an application. The application server may provide accesscontrol services in cooperation with the data store and is able togenerate content including, but not limited to, text, graphics, audio,video and/or other content usable to be provided to the user, which maybe served to the user by the web server in the form of HyperText MarkupLanguage (“HTML”), Extensible Markup Language (“XML”), JavaScript,Cascading Style Sheets (“CSS”), JavaScript Object Notation (JSON),and/or another appropriate client-side structured language. Contenttransferred to a client device may be processed by the client device toprovide the content in one or more forms including, but not limited to,forms that are perceptible to the user audibly, visually and/or throughother senses. The handling of all requests and responses, as well as thedelivery of content between the client device 2402 and the applicationserver 2408, can be handled by the web server using PHP: HypertextPreprocessor (“PHP”), Python, Ruby, Perl, Java, HTML, XML, JSON, and/oranother appropriate server-side structured language in this example.Further, operations described herein as being performed by a singledevice may, unless otherwise clear from context, be performedcollectively by multiple devices, which may form a distributed and/orvirtual system.

The data store 2410 can include several separate data tables, databases,data documents, dynamic data storage schemes and/or other data storagemechanisms and media for storing data relating to a particular aspect ofthe present disclosure. For example, the data store illustrated mayinclude mechanisms for storing production data 2412 and user information2416, which can be used to serve content for the production side. Thedata store also is shown to include a mechanism for storing log data2414, which can be used for reporting, analysis or other such purposes.It should be understood that there can be many other aspects that mayneed to be stored in the data store, such as page image information andaccess rights information, which can be stored in any of the abovelisted mechanisms as appropriate or in additional mechanisms in the datastore 2410. The data store 2410 is operable, through logic associatedtherewith, to receive instructions from the application server 2408 andobtain, update or otherwise process data in response thereto. Theapplication server 2408 may provide static, dynamic, or a combination ofstatic and dynamic data in response to the received instructions.Dynamic data, such as data used in web logs (blogs), shoppingapplications, news services, and other such applications may begenerated by server-side structured languages as described herein or maybe provided by a content management system (“CMS”) operating on, orunder the control of, the application server. In one example, a user,through a device operated by the user, might submit a search request fora certain type of item. In this case, the data store might access theuser information to verify the identity of the user and can access thecatalog detail information to obtain information about items of thattype. The information then can be returned to the user, such as in aresults listing on a web page that the user is able to view via abrowser on the user device 2402. Information for a particular item ofinterest can be viewed in a dedicated page or window of the browser. Itshould be noted, however, that embodiments of the present disclosure arenot necessarily limited to the context of web pages, but may be moregenerally applicable to processing requests in general, where therequests are not necessarily requests for content.

Each server typically will include an operating system that providesexecutable program instructions for the general administration andoperation of that server and typically will include a computer-readablestorage medium (e.g., a hard disk, random access memory, read onlymemory, etc.) storing instructions that, when executed (i.e., as aresult of being executed) by a processor of the server, allow the serverto perform its intended functions.

The environment, in one embodiment, is a distributed and/or virtualcomputing environment utilizing several computer systems and componentsthat are interconnected via communication links, using one or morecomputer networks or direct connections. However, it will be appreciatedby those of ordinary skill in the art that such a system could operateequally well in a system having fewer or a greater number of componentsthan are illustrated in FIG. 24. Thus, the depiction of the system 2400in FIG. 24 should be taken as being illustrative in nature and notlimiting to the scope of the disclosure.

The various embodiments further can be implemented in a wide variety ofoperating environments, which in some cases can include one or more usercomputers, computing devices or processing devices which can be used tooperate any of a number of applications. User or client devices caninclude any of a number of computers, such as desktop, laptop or tabletcomputers running a standard operating system, as well as cellular,wireless and handheld devices running mobile software and capable ofsupporting a number of networking and messaging protocols. Such a systemalso can include a number of workstations running any of a variety ofcommercially-available operating systems and other known applicationsfor purposes such as development and database management. These devicesalso can include other electronic devices, such as dummy terminals,thin-clients, gaming systems and other devices capable of communicatingvia a network. These devices also can include virtual devices such asvirtual machines, hypervisors and other virtual devices capable ofcommunicating via a network.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure utilize at least onenetwork that would be familiar to those skilled in the art forsupporting communications using any of a variety ofcommercially-available protocols, such as Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”), User Datagram Protocol (“UDP”),protocols operating in various layers of the Open System Interconnection(“OSI”) model, File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”), Universal Plug and Play(“UpnP”), Network File System (“NFS”), Common Internet File System(“CIFS”) and AppleTalk. The network can be, for example, a local areanetwork, a wide-area network, a virtual private network, the Internet,an intranet, an extranet, a public switched telephone network, aninfrared network, a wireless network, a satellite network, and anycombination thereof. In some embodiments, connection-oriented protocolsmay be used to communicate between network endpoints.Connection-oriented protocols (sometimes called connection-basedprotocols) are capable of transmitting data in an ordered stream.Connection-oriented protocols can be reliable or unreliable. Forexample, the TCP protocol is a reliable connection-oriented protocol.Asynchronous Transfer Mode (“ATM”) and Frame Relay are unreliableconnection-oriented protocols. Connection-oriented protocols are incontrast to packet-oriented protocols such as UDP that transmit packetswithout a guaranteed ordering.

In embodiments utilizing a web server, the web server can run any of avariety of server or mid-tier applications, including Hypertext TransferProtocol (“HTTP”) servers, FTP servers, Common Gateway Interface (“CGI”)servers, data servers, Java servers, Apache servers, and businessapplication servers. The server(s) also may be capable of executingprograms or scripts in response to requests from user devices, such asby executing one or more web applications that may be implemented as oneor more scripts or programs written in any programming language, such asJava®, C, C# or C++, or any scripting language, such as Ruby, PHP, Perl,Python or TCL, as well as combinations thereof. The server(s) may alsoinclude database servers, including without limitation thosecommercially available from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase®, and IBM® aswell as open-source servers such as MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, MongoDB,and any other server capable of storing, retrieving, and accessingstructured or unstructured data. Database servers may includetable-based servers, document-based servers, unstructured servers,relational servers, non-relational servers, or combinations of theseand/or other database servers.

The environment can include a variety of data stores and other memoryand storage media as discussed above. These can reside in a variety oflocations, such as on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) oneor more of the computers or remote from any or all of the computersacross the network. In a particular set of embodiments, the informationmay reside in a storage-area network (“SAN”) familiar to those skilledin the art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functionsattributed to the computers, servers or other network devices may bestored locally and/or remotely, as appropriate. Where a system includescomputerized devices, each such device can include hardware elementsthat may be electrically coupled via a bus, the elements including, forexample, at least one central processing unit (“CPU” or “processor”), atleast one input device (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, controller, touchscreen, or keypad) and at least one output device (e.g., a displaydevice, printer, or speaker). Such a system may also include one or morestorage devices, such as disk drives, optical storage devices, andsolid-state storage devices such as random access memory (“RAM”) orread-only memory (“ROM”), as well as removable media devices, memorycards, flash cards, etc.

Such devices also can include a computer-readable storage media reader,a communications device (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless orwired), an infrared communication device, etc.), and working memory asdescribed above. The computer-readable storage media reader can beconnected with, or configured to receive, a computer-readable storagemedium, representing remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storagedevices as well as storage media for temporarily and/or more permanentlycontaining, storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readableinformation. The system and various devices also typically will includea number of software applications, modules, services, or other elementslocated within at least one working memory device, including anoperating system and application programs, such as a client applicationor web browser. In addition, customized hardware might also be usedand/or particular elements might be implemented in hardware, software(including portable software, such as applets) or both. Further,connection to other computing devices such as network input/outputdevices may be employed.

Storage media and computer readable media for containing code, orportions of code, can include any appropriate media known or used in theart, including storage media and communication media, such as, but notlimited to, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information such as computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data, including RAM, ROM, Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (“EEPROM”), flash memory or other memorytechnology, Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (“CD-ROM”), digital versatiledisk (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape,magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices or any othermedium which can be used to store the desired information and which canbe accessed by the system device. Based on the disclosure and teachingsprovided herein, a person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciateother ways and/or methods to implement the various embodiments.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that various modifications and changes may be made thereuntowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the claims.

Other variations are within the spirit of the present disclosure. Thus,while the disclosed techniques are susceptible to various modificationsand alternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereofare shown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. Itshould be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit theinvention to the specific form or forms disclosed, but on the contrary,the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions,and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention, asdefined in the appended claims.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in thecontext of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in thecontext of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both thesingular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearlycontradicted by context. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,”and “containing” are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning“including, but not limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. The term“connected,” when unmodified and referring to physical connections, isto be construed as partly or wholly contained within, attached to, orjoined together, even if there is something intervening. Recitation ofranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as a shorthandmethod of referring individually to each separate value falling withinthe range, unless otherwise indicated herein and each separate value isincorporated into the specification as if it were individually recitedherein. The use of the term “set” (e.g., “a set of items”) or “subset”unless otherwise noted or contradicted by context, is to be construed asa nonempty collection comprising one or more members. Further, unlessotherwise noted or contradicted by context, the term “subset” of acorresponding set does not necessarily denote a proper subset of thecorresponding set, but the subset and the corresponding set may beequal.

Conjunctive language, such as phrases of the form “at least one of A, B,and C,” or “at least one of A, B and C,” unless specifically statedotherwise or otherwise clearly contradicted by context, is otherwiseunderstood with the context as used in general to present that an item,term, etc., may be either A or B or C, or any nonempty subset of the setof A and B and C. For instance, in the illustrative example of a sethaving three members, the conjunctive phrases “at least one of A, B, andC” and “at least one of A, B and C” refer to any of the following sets:{A}, {B}, {C}, {A, B}, {A, C}, {B, C}, {A, B, C}. Thus, such conjunctivelanguage is not generally intended to imply that certain embodimentsrequire at least one of A, at least one of B and at least one of C eachto be present. In addition, unless otherwise noted or contradicted bycontext, the term “plurality” indicates a state of being plural (e.g.,“a plurality of items” indicates multiple items). The number of items ina plurality is at least two, but can be more when so indicated eitherexplicitly or by context.

Operations of processes described herein can be performed in anysuitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearlycontradicted by context. Processes described herein (or variationsand/or combinations thereof) may be performed under the control of oneor more computer systems configured with executable instructions and maybe implemented as code (e.g., executable instructions, one or morecomputer programs or one or more applications) executing collectively onone or more processors, by hardware or combinations thereof. The codemay be stored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in theform of a computer program comprising a plurality of instructionsexecutable by one or more processors. The computer-readable storagemedium may be non-transitory. In some embodiments, the code is stored onset of one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media havingstored thereon executable instructions that, when executed (i.e., as aresult of being executed) by one or more processors of a computersystem, cause the computer system to perform operations describedherein. The set of non-transitory computer-readable storage media maycomprise multiple non-transitory computer-readable storage media and oneor more of individual non-transitory storage media of the multiplenon-transitory computer-readable storage media may lack all of the codewhile the multiple non-transitory computer-readable storage mediacollectively store all of the code. Further, in some examples, theexecutable instructions are executed such that different instructionsare executed by different processors. As an illustrative example, anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium may store instructions.A main CPU may execute some of the instructions and a graphics processorunit may execute other of the instructions. Generally, differentcomponents of a computer system may have separate processors anddifferent processors may execute different subsets of the instructions.

Accordingly, in some examples, computer systems are configured toimplement one or more services that singly or collectively performoperations of processes described herein. Such computer systems may, forinstance, be configured with applicable hardware and/or software thatenable the performance of the operations. Further, computer systems thatimplement various embodiments of the present disclosure may, in someexamples, be single devices and, in other examples, be distributedcomputer systems comprising multiple devices that operate differentlysuch that the distributed computer system performs the operationsdescribed herein and such that a single device may not perform alloperations.

The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”)provided herein, is intended merely to better illuminate embodiments ofthe invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of theinvention unless otherwise claimed. No language in the specificationshould be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essentialto the practice of the invention.

Embodiments of this disclosure are described herein, including the bestmode known to the inventors for carrying out the invention. Variationsof those embodiments may become apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art upon reading the foregoing description. The inventors expectskilled artisans to employ such variations as appropriate and theinventors intend for embodiments of the present disclosure to bepracticed otherwise than as specifically described herein. Accordingly,the scope of the present disclosure includes all modifications andequivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended heretoas permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of theabove-described elements in all possible variations thereof isencompassed by the scope of the present disclosure unless otherwiseindicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.

All references, including publications, patent applications, andpatents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the sameextent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicatedto be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entiretyherein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:detecting, by a switching device of a first network-attachable datatransfer device, a first command to configure an external data interfaceof a first network-attachable data transfer device of an interconnectedplurality of network-attachable data transfer devices; processing, bythe switching device, the first command to at least make a data storagedevice of the first network-attachable data transfer device accessiblevia the external data interface on a condition that associated attemptsto utilize the external data interface are authorized; detecting, by theswitching device at the external data interface, a second command toaccess the data storage device; processing first cryptographicinformation associated with the first network-attachable data transferdevice and second cryptographic information associated with the secondcommand to determine that the second command is authorized; configuringthe switching device to enable fulfillment of a third command associatedwith the second command; detecting the third command; and causing, inresponse to the third command, the data storage device to appear as alocal device of a second network-attachable data transfer device of theplurality of network-attachable data transfer devices.
 2. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein configuring theswitching device to enable fulfillment of the third command causes theswitching device to receive the first command.
 3. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the local device of thedifferent network-attachable data transfer device is read-only.
 4. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving,from a third network-attachable data transfer device outside of theplurality of network-attachable data transfer devices, a fourth commandto access the data storage device; determining that the fourth commandis authorized; configuring the switching device to enable fulfillment ofa fifth command associated with the fourth command; receiving a fifthcommand; causing, in response to the fifth command, transfer of one ormore data objects associated with the first network-attachable datatransfer device to the third network-attachable data transfer device;and configuring the third network-attachable data transfer device tosuccessfully establish a connection with a remainder of the plurality ofnetwork-attachable data transfer devices other than the firstnetwork-attachable data transfer device.
 5. A system, comprising: one ormore processors; memory storing computer-executable instructions that,when executed, cause the one or more processors to: detect a firstcommand to a switching device connected to the system to cause theswitching device to associate a data interface with a data storagedevice; detect a notification that a different system is attempting toconnect to the data interface; verify authorization information receivedfrom the different system; and issue a second command to the switchingdevice to connect the data storage device as a local storage device ofthe different system.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein theinstructions, if executed, that cause the one or more processors toverify the authorization information further cause the one or moreprocessors to verify a cryptographic shared secret of the differentsystem and the data storage device.
 7. The system of claim 5, whereinthe system is connected to the switching device via a Universal SerialBus (USB) or a General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) connection.
 8. Thesystem of claim 5, wherein the switching device is connected to the datainterface and the data storage device via one of a Serial Attached SCSI(SAS) or Serial ATA (SATA) link.
 9. The system of claim 5, wherein thedata storage device is connected to a different data interface prior toissuance of the first command.
 10. The system of claim 5, wherein theinstructions, if executed, further cause the one or more processors toissue the second command in response to detecting that a deviceassociated with the data storage device is operating abnormally.
 11. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the instructions, if executed, further causethe one or more processors to receive the indication from the differentsystem.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein the instructions, ifexecuted, further cause the one or more processors to receive theindication from the device.
 13. A set of non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media that stores executable instructionswhich, when executed by one or more processors of a computer system,cause the computer system to: detect, via a first data interface, that asecond computer system connected to the computer system has an operatingparameter outside of a predetermined range; cause data stored on thesecond computer system to appear locally to the computer system via adifferent second data interface using a different protocol than that ofthe first data interface; attempt to service read requests associatedwith the data on behalf of the second computer system using at least thesecond computer system; and service write requests by excluding thesecond computer system.
 14. The set of non-transitory computer-readablestorage media of claim 13, wherein the data is stored as a plurality ofshards on the computer system and the second computer system inaccordance with a redundancy coding scheme.
 15. The set ofnon-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 14, wherein theinstructions that cause the computer system to service the read requestsfurther include instructions that cause the computer system toreconstruct the data from a subset of the plurality of shards, thesubset including at least one shard stored on the computer system and atleast one other shard stored on the second computer system.
 16. The setof non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 14, whereinthe instructions that cause the computer system to service the writerequests further include instructions that cause the computer system toencode the data using a different redundancy coding scheme.
 17. The setof non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 16, whereinthe different redundancy coding scheme accounts for the operatingparameter.
 18. The set of non-transitory computer-readable storage mediaof claim 13, wherein the instructions that cause the computer system toattempt to service the read requests further include instructions thatcause the computer system to service the read requests using the secondcomputer system on a condition that the data stored on the secondcomputer system is accessible to the computer system.
 19. The set ofnon-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein theinstructions further cause the computer system to, if the data stored onthe second computer system is not accessible to the computer system,regenerating information sufficient to service the read requests byexcluding the data stored on the second computer system.
 20. The set ofnon-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein theinstructions that cause the computer system to cause the data stored onthe second computer system to appear locally to the computer systemfurther include instructions that cause the computer system to address afirst data storage device of the second computer system on which thedata is stored using the same protocol as a second data storage deviceof the computer system.